Lindsey Davis Books

`The first concern of an author is to do down his colleagues.'In the long, hot Roman summer of AD 74, Falco, private informer and spare-time poet, gives a reading for his family and friends. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates Falco in a gruesome literary murder, so when commissioned to investigate, Falco is forced to accept.

The Jupiter Myth

Ancient Rome's most turbulent period is recreated in this story of the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress, Antonia Caenis, a freed slave. As their forbidden romance blossoms, she is embroiled in political intrigue, while he embarks on a glorious career.

The next book in the thrilling Flavia Albia series, by acclaimed author Lindsey Davis.

'Lindsey Davis has seen off all her competitors to become the unassailable market leader in the 'crime in Ancient Rome' genre . . . Davis's squalid, vibrant Rome is as pleasurable as ever' - Guardian 'For fans of crime fiction set in the ancient world, this one is not to be missed' - Booklist Private investigator Flavia Albia is always drawn to an intriguing puzzle - even if it is put to her by her new husband's hostile ex-wife. On the Quirinal Hill, a young girl named Clodia has died, apparently poisoned with a love potion. Only one person could have supplied such a thing: a local witch who goes by the name of Pandora, whose trade in herbal beauty products is hiding something far more sinister. The supposedly sweet air of the Quirinal is masking the stench of loose morality, casual betrayal and even gangland conflict and, when a friend of her own is murdered, Albia determines to expose as much of this local sickness as she can - beginning with the truth about Clodia's death. **************** Praise for Lindsey Davis and the Flavia Albia series 'Davis's prose is a lively joy, and Flavia's Rome is sinister and gloriously real' The Times on Sunday 'Davis's books crackle with wit and knowledge . . . She has the happy knack of making the reader feel entirely immersed in Rome'

Saturnalia is the eighteenth book in Lindsey Davis' bestselling Falco series. It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short, the nights are for wild parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. The logistics go wrong; she acquires a mystery illness -- then a young man is horrendously murdered and she escapes from house arrest. Marcus Didius Falco is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites, in a race to find the fugitive before her presence angers the public and makes the government look stupid. Falco has other priorities, for Helena's brother Justinus has also vanished, perhaps fatefully involved once more with the great lost love of his youth. Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule, the search seems impossible and only Falco seems to notice that some dark agency is bringing death to the city streets.

Balbinus Pius, the most notorious gangster in Emperor Vespasian's Rome, has been convicted of a capital crime at last. A quirk of Roman law, however, allows citizens condemned to death "time to depart" and find exile outside the empire. Now as every hoodlum in Rome scrambles to take over Balbinus' operations, private eye Marcus Didius Falco has to deal with an unprecedented wave of crime--and the sneaking suspicion that Balbinus' exile may not really be so permanent after all.

In the sacred grove of Julius Caesar, something deadly stirs in the undergrowth—a serial killer, who haunted the gardens for years, has claimed another victim—in Lindsey Davis’s next historical mystery, The Grove of the Caesars. At the feet of her adoptive father, renowned private informer Marcus Didius Falco, Flavia Albia learned a number of important rules. First and foremost—always keep one's distance from the palace, nothing good comes from that direction. But right behind it—murder is the business of the Vigiles, best to leave them to it. Having broken the first rule more often than she'd like, it's no surprise to anyone when she finds herself breaking the second one. The public gardens named after the Caesars is a place nice girls are warned away from and when a series of bodies are uncovered, it seems that a serial killer has been haunting the grove for years. The case is assigned to one Julius Karus, a cohort of the Vigiles, but Albia is convinced that nothing will come of his efforts. Out of sympathy for the dead women and their grieving relatives, Albia decides to work with the vile Karus and bring the serial killer to justice.

In the high summer of 77 AD, Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. Newly bereaved and facing unexpected upheavals in his life, it is a relief for him to consider someone else's misfortunes. A middle-aged couple who supplied statues to his father, Geminus, have disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

An unpaid bar bill leads Flavia Albia to her most bitter and complex case yet. Decades earlier Appius Tranquillus Surus wrote his will: it freed his slaves and bequeathed his businesses to them. He left an orchard to the Prisci, a family he was friendly with, on the condition that his freedmen could still take its harvest. The convoluted arrangement has led to a feud between the two families, each of which has its own internal strife. Endless claims and counterclaims lead to violence and even death. Lawyers have given up in exasperation as the case limps on. The original will has disappeared, along with a falsified codicil - and might there be another one? But is there a solution? Two youngsters from each side of the divide, Gaius Venuleius and Cosca Sabatina, have fallen in love, which could unite the feuding families. There is only one problem: were Sabatina's grandmother and father really liberated in the Surus will? If not, the stigma of slavery will stop the marriage and the dispute will rage on forever. Reconciliation seems impossible, but Albia will try. Her investigation must cut through decades of secrets, arguments, lies and violence to reach a startling truth