6. Last Act in Palmyra (Falco series: book 6 of 20)
‘I was just a freelance hero doing his best in a hard world.’ The spirit of adventure calls Falco on a new spying mission for the Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He’s picking up extra fees from his old friend Thalia the snake dancer as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With the Chief Spy Anacrites paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong.
A dangerous brush with the Brother, the sinister ruler of Nabataean Petra, sends Falco and his girlfriend Helena on a fast camel-ride to Syria. Here they join a travelling theatre group, which keeps losing members in non-accidental drownings. The bad acting and poor audiences are almost as bad as the desert and its scorpions – then as the killer hovers, Falco tries to write a play…
7. Time to Depart (Falco series: book 1 of 20)
‘“I still can’t believe I’ve put the bastard away for good!” Petro muttered.’ Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine watch and Falco’s oldest friend, has finally nailed one of Rome’s top criminals. Under Roman law, citizens are not imprisoned but are allowed ‘time to depart’ into exile outside the Empire. One dark and gloomy dawn, Petro and Falco put the evil Balbinus aboard a ship.
But soon after, an outbreak of robbery and murder suggests a new criminal ring has moved into Balbinus’ territory. Petro and Falco must descend into the underworld of Vespasian’s Rome to investigate...
8. A Dying Light in Corduba (Falco series: book 8 of 20)
'Nobody was poisoned at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica, though in retrospect this was quite a surprise.' Inimitable sleuth Falco is back with a vengeance. On one night, a man is killed and Rome’s Chief Spy left for dead. This leaves no one except Falco to conduct the investigation. Soon he is plunged into the fiercely competitive world of olive oil production. Political intrigue, an exotic Spanish dancer and impending fatherhood all add to Falco’s troubles.
9. Three Hands in the Fountain (Falco series: book 9 of 20)
‘The fountain was not working. Nothing unusual in that…’ Falco and his laddish friend Petronius find their local fountain has been blocked – by a gruesomely severed human hand.
Soon other body parts are being found in the aqueducts and sewers. Public panic overcomes official indifference, and the Aventine partners are commissioned to investigate. Women are being abducted during festivals, with the next Games only days away. As the heat rises in the Circus Maximus, Falco and Petro face a race against time and a strong test of their friendship. They know the sadistic killerlurks somewhere on the festive streets of Rome – preparing to strike again.
10. Two for the Lions (Falco series: book 10 of 20)
‘What did he eat last? Whom did he eat, in fact?’ Lumbered with working alongside reptilian Chief Spy Anacrites, Falco has the perfect plan to make money – he will assist Vespasian in the Emperor’s ‘Great Census’ of AD 73. His potential fee could finally allow him to join the middle ranks and be worthy of long-suffering Helena Justina.
Unexpectedly confronted with the murder of a man-eating lion, Falco is distracted from his original task, uncovering a bitter rivalry between the gladiators’ trainers. With one star gladiator dead, Falco is forced to investigate and the trail leads from Rome to the blood-soaked sand of the arena in North Africa.
11. One Virgin Too Many (Falco series: book 11 of 20)
‘All the problems I know about are family ones.’ A frightened child approaches Roman informer Falco pleading for help. Nobody believes Gaia’s story that a relation wants to kill her – and neither does he. Beset by his own family troubles, by his new responsibilities as Procurator of the Sacred Poultry, and by the continuing search for a new partner, Falco turns her away.
Immediately he regrets it. Gaia has been selected as the new Vestal Virgin, and when she disappears Falco is officially asked to investigate. Finding Gaia is then a race against time, ending in Falco’s most terrifying exploit yet…
12. Ode to a Banker (Falco series: book 12 of 20)
‘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. Things get out of hand as usual. The event is taken over by Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and patron to a group of struggling writers, who offers to publish Falco’s work. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates Falco in a gruesome literary murder, so when commissioned to investigate, Falco is forced to accept.
Lindsey Davis’s twelfth novel wittily explores Roman publishing and banking, taking us from the jealousies of authorship and the mire of patronage to the darker financial world, where default can have fatal consequences…
13. A Body in the Bath House (Falco series: book 13 of 20)
‘There’s nothing wrong with Britain … that is if you leave out the mammoth travelling distance from one’s dear Roman heritage!’ AD 75. As a passion for home improvement sweeps through the Roman Empire, Falco struggles to deal with a pair of terrible bath-house contractors who have been causing him misery for months. Far away in Britain, King Togidubnus of the Atrebates tribe is planning his own makeover. His huge new residence (known to us as Fishbourne Palace) will be spectacular – but the sensational refurbishment is beset by ‘accidents’. The frugal Emperor Vespasian is paying for all this; he wants someone to investigate.
Falco has a new baby, a new house, and he hates Britain. But his feud with Anacrites the Chief Spy has now reached a dangerous level, so with his own pressing reasons to leave Rome in a hurry, he accepts the task. A thousand miles from home, he starts restoring order to the chaotic building site and realises that someone with murderous intentions is now after him…
14. The Jupiter Myth (Falco series: book 14 of 20)
‘To find a drowned man head-first down a well was slightly unusual, exciting maybe.’ For Falco, a relaxed visit to Helena’s relatives in Britain turns serious at the scene of a downtown murder. The renegade henchman of Rome’s vital ally King Togidubnus has been stuffed head-first down a barroom well – leading to a tricky diplomatic situation which Falco must defuse. One murder leads to others. Londinium now has a forum and an amphitheatre; the town is a magnet for legitimate traders – and for criminals from Rome.
With his vigiles pal Petronius, Falco leads the hunt for gangsters who are intent on taking over. This will bring unwelcome encounters with faces from the past and grave threats to their present relationships. Danger and death lurk throughout their pursuit, all the way from the brand new wharves beside the River Thames to the familiar old haunts of organised crime back home in Italy.
15. The Accusers (Falco series: book 15 of 20)
‘Luckily the judge was eager to adjourn for lunch.’ Having returned from his trip to Londinium, Falco takes up employment with two lawyers at the top of their trade. For the trial of a senator, they need Falco to make an affidavit confirming repayment of a loan. Having been out of the country and starved of Forum gossip for some time, Falco has little interest in this trial, so he makes his deposition and then leaves.
The prosecution are successful and a large financial judgment is made, but one month later the senator is dead, apparently by suicide. The heirs are now in a situation of not having to pay up, and the prosecutor suddenly decides to seek out Falco. With a little coercion, Falco joins the prosecution in seeking to persuade a magistrate to instigate a new trial. Blinded by the vision of rich pickings to be gained by the prosecution, Falco temporarily forgets that, if they fail, the financial penalties levelled against the informers who brought the case are potentially enormous.
16. Scandal Takes a Holiday (Falco series: book 16 of 20)
‘This was a lonely place for anybody to be brought to die.’ In the wealthy town of Ostia, our hero Falco appears to be enjoying a relaxing holiday. But when his girlfriend, Helena, arrives carrying a batch of old copies of the Daily Gazette – with the intention of catching up on the latest scandal – Falco is forced to admit to Petronius his real reasons for being there…
‘Infamia’, the pen name of the scribe who writes the gossip column for the Daily Gazette, has gone missing. His fellow scribes have employed Falco to find him and bring him back from his lazy, drunken truancy. However, Falco suspects that there is more to his absence than there might first appear.
17. See Delphi and Die (Falco series: book 17 of 20)
‘Marcus, you must help me!’ Stunned by a dramatic appeal from his otherwise cool mother-in-law, Falco cannot resist. His brother-in-law has been diverted from his route to Athens University by a man whose newly married daughter disappeared, with her husband, while visiting the Olympic Games as part of an extended wedding trip. Suspecting a classic cover-up, Aulus enrols Falco’s help in solving the case. And of course his mother-in-law hopes to hurry her son along to university by passing the case over to Falco.
Joining the rest of the married couple’s tour group on the remains of their Grand Tour, Falco and Helena seize the opportunity to interview the owner/manager of ‘Seven Sights Travel’, as well as the other guests. Seemingly not getting very far, they can at least make the most of the splendid sights; but finally, on reaching Delphi, Falco and Helena unravel the mystery of the bride and groom…
18. Saturnalia (Falco series: book 18 of 20)
‘We should have time to manage it … and still get back to the party before the wine runs out.’ 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.
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. 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…
19. Alexandria (Falco series: book 19 of 20)
'I came fully equipped with the old prejudice that anything to do with Egypt involved corruption and deceit.' AD 77. Egypt was the destination of choice for Roman tourists, being home to not one but two Wonders of the Ancient World, a Centre of Culture, and people with exotic habits.
Unfortunately, when Marcus Didius Falco pays a visit he discovers it's also a hotbed of schemers and murderers. When the Head Librarian dies in suspicious circumstances, the Roman authorities are only too happy to dump the case on one of the Empire's most celebrated investigators - all adding up to a typical Falco family vacation.
20. Nemesis (Falco series: book 20 of 20)
In the high summer of AD 77, laid-back detective Marcus Didius Falco is called upon to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a middle-aged couple who supplied statues to Falco's father, Geminus. The Claudii, notorious freedmen who live rough in the pestilential Pontine Marshes, are the prime suspects. Falco, beset by personal problems, finds it a relief to consider someone else's misfortunes.
When a mutilated corpse turns up near Rome, Falco and his vigiles friend Petronius investigate, only for the Chief Spy, Anacrites, to snatch their case away from them just as they are making progress.As his rivalry with Falco escalates, it emerges that the violent Claudii have acquired corrupt protection at the highest level. Making further enquiries after they have been warned off can only be dangerous - but will this stop Falco and Petronius?
Egged on by the slippery bureaucrats who hate Anacrites, the dogged friends dig deeper while a psychotic killer keeps taking more victims, and the shocking truth creeps closer and closer to home...
21. The Ides of April (Flavia Albia series: book 1 of 11)
Flavia Albia is the adopted daughter of a famous investigating family. In defiance of tradition, she lives alone on the colourful Aventine Hill, and battles out a solo career in a male-dominated world. As a woman and an outsider, Albia has special insight into the best, and worst, of life in ancient Rome.
A female client dies in mysterious circumstances. Albia investigates and discovers there have been many other strange deaths all over the city, yet she is warned off by the authorities. The vigils are incompetent. The local magistrate is otherwise engaged, organising the Games of Ceres, notorious for its ancient fox-burning ritual. Even Albia herself is preoccupied with a new love affair: Andronicus, an attractive archivist, offers all that a love-starved young widow can want, even though she knows better than to take him home to meet the parents...
As the festival progresses, her neighbourhood descends into mayhem and becomes the heartless killer's territory. While Albia and her allies search for him, he stalks them through familiar byways and brings murder ever closer to home.
22. Enemies at Home (Flavia Albia series: book 2 of 11)
Albia is a remarkable woman in what is very much a man's world: young, widowed and fiercely independent, she lives alone on the Aventine Hill in Rome and makes a good living as a hired investigator. An outsider in more ways than one, Albia has unique insight into life in ancient Rome, and she puts it to good use going places no man could go, and asking questions no man could ask.
Even as the dust settles from her last case, Albia finds herself once again drawn into a web of lies and intrigue. Two mysterious deaths at a local villa may be murder and, as the household slaves are implicated, Albia is once again forced to involve herself. Her fight is not just for truth and justice, however; this time, she's also battling for the very lives of people who can't fight for themselves.
23. Deadly Election (Flavia Albia series: book 3 of 11)
In the blazing July heat of imperial Rome, Flavia Albia inspects a decomposing corpse. It has been discovered in lots to be auctioned by her family business, so she's determined to identify the dead man and learn how he met his gruesome end. The investigation will give her a chance to work with the magistrate, Manlius Faustus, the friend she sadly knows to be the last chaste man in Rome. But he's got other concerns than her anonymous corpse. It's election time and with democracy for sale at Domitian's court, tension has come to a head. Faustus is acting as an agent for a 'good husband and father', whose traditional family values are being called into question. Even more disreputable are his rivals, whom Faustus wants Albia to discredit.
As Albia's and Faustus' professional and personal partnership deepens they have to accept that, for others, obsession can turn sour, and become a deadly strain that leads, tragically, to murder.
24. The Graveyard of the Hesperides (Flavia Albia series: book 4 of 11)
Description
25. The Third Nero (Flavia Albia series: book 5 of 11)
Flavia Albia's day-old marriage is in trouble - her new husband may be permanently disabled and they have no funds. So when Palace officials ask her to expose a traitor in their midst she is ready for the task. Ever since the Emperor Nero committed suicide in AD 68, Rome has been haunted by reports that he is actually alive and ready to reclaim his throne. Two Nero pretenders have emerged from the East and met grisly fates.
But now a new pretender has been smuggled into Rome by the traitor. Flavia must negotiate with spies, dodge assassins and reveal this third Nero before he can make his move. Will she act in time or will Rome once more be plunged into civil war?
26. Pandora's Boy (Flavia Albia series: book 6 of 11)
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.
27. A Capitol Death (Flavia Albia series: book 7 of 11)
Emperor Domitian has been awarded (or rather, has demanded) yet another Triumph to celebrate two so-called victories. Preparations are going smoothly until one of the men overseeing arrangements for the celebration accidentally falls to his death from a cliff on the symbolic Capitoline Hill.
But Flavia Albia suspects there's more to the incident than meets the eye, as there are plenty of people who would have been delighted to be rid of the overseer. He was an abusive swine who couldn't organise a booze-up in a winery and was caught up in a number of scams, including one surrounding the supply of imperial purple dye and a family of shellfish-boilers.
As Flavia finds herself drawn into a theatrical world of carnival floats, musicians, incense and sacrificial beasts, can she see to the heart of the matter and catch those responsible for the unpopular man's untimely death?
28. The Grove of the Caesars (Flavia Albia series: book 8 of 11)
Julius Caesar left his gardens to the citizens of Rome, a peaceful sanctuary across the Tiber. Now the gardens and their sacred grove are dangerous haunts, especially for women alone. 'Don't go to the Grove,' people mutter, but when her husband has to leave Rome, it falls to Albia to supervise his building project in an old grotto. Why has someone buried tattered scrolls by obscure philosophers - and does it involve a worse crime than terrible writing?
Soon that puzzle is overtaken. A woman disappears from her husband's birthday party; she meets a dire fate, then Albia learns that on the same night, two louche slaves given to her family by the brooding Emperor Domitian also vanished in the gardens. Apparently, it is well known that a killer lurks there.
The vigiles have failed to investigate properly for decades and this won't improve when the sinister agent Karus arrives. Albia must co-operate, in order to give the many victims justice and find answers for grieving relatives. But can she herself remain safe? And, after others have failed, can she at last identify the predator who has made the Grove his killing ground?
29. A Comedy of Terrors (Flavia Albia series: book 9 of 11)
Saturnalia, the Romans' mid-December feast, nominally to celebrate the sun's rebirth but invariably a drunken riot. Flavia Albia needs a case to investigate, but all work is paused.
The Aventine is full of fracturing families. Wives plot to leave their husbands, husbands plot to spend more time with their mistresses. Masters must endure slaves taking obscene liberties, while aggressive slaves are learning to ape dangerous masters. But no one wants to hire an investigator during the holiday.
Albia is lumped with her own domestic stress: overexcited children and bilious guests, too many practical jokes, and her magistrate husband Tiberius preoccupied with local strife. He fears a Nut War. Nuts are both the snack and missile of choice of tipsy celebrants, so there is a fortune to be made. This year a hustling gang from the past is horning in on the action.
As the deadly menace strikes even close to home, and with law and order paused for partying, Albia and Tiberius must go it alone. The Emperor has promised the people a spectacular entertainment - but Domitian himself is a target for the old criminals' new schemes. Can the Undying Sun survive the winter solstice, or will criminal darkness descend upon Rome?
30. Desperate Undertaking (Flavia Alba series book 10 of 11)
Rome, the very end of December. The Field of Mars is packed with monuments, none more beautiful than Domitian's new Odeon and Stadium. But the area has been overtaken by ugly events: elaborately staged murders. Someone bears a spectacular grudge against the theatrical community, and intends to get revenge in the most spectacular way possible. The killer's method is to re-enact bloody scenes from the gruesome side of popular theatre, where characters in plays really die on stage.
The paperback edition is out in October 2022.
Hardcover:
Publication date: 7 April 2022
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 978-1529354683
Pages: 416
|
Paperback:
Publication date: 13 October 2022
Publisher: Hodder
ISBN: 978-1529354720
Pages: 400
|
Kindle:
Publication date: 7 April 2022
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
|
Audiobook:
Publication date: 7 April 2022
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Length: 12 hrs 58 mins
Narrator: Jane Collingwood
|
31. Fatal Legacy (Flavia Alba series book 11 of 11)
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.
Hardcover:
Publication date: 6 April 2023
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 978-1529354737
Pages: 416
|
Paperback:
Publication date: tbc
Publisher: Hodder
ISBN: tbc
Pages:
|
Kindle:
Publication date: 6 April 2023
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
|
Audiobook:
Publication date: 6 April 2023
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Length: 11 hrs 50 mins
Narrator: Jane Collingwood
|
32. The Course of Honour
‘He has no money, no reputation and no famous ancestors.’ The love story of the Emperor Vespasian, who brought peace to Rome after years of strife, and his mistress, the freed slave woman Caenis, this book recreates Ancient Rome’s most turbulent period – the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero and Vespasian’s rise to power.
As their forbidden romance blossoms, Caenis is embroiled in political intrigue, while Vespasian embarks on a glorious career. Years pass, then Vespasian risks all in the climactic struggle for power – bringing hope for Rome, but a threat to the relationship that has endured for so long.
33. Master and God
Afflicted by classic paranoia, the self-styled Master and God sees enemies everywhere. As he vents his suspicions, no one is safe. A reluctant hero, Gaius Vinius Clodianus is hand-picked for high rank in the Praetorian Guard a brave man striving for decency in a world of corruption and deceit.
Flavia Lucilla, tending the privileged women at court, hears the intimate secrets of a ruler who plays with the lives of his subjects as if he were indeed a careless god. In the dark shadow of Domitian's reign, Clodianus and Lucilla play out their own complex tale of resilience, friendship and love.
Unwilling witnesses to Domitian's descent into insanity, these ordinary people must choose between their sworn duty to protect the Emperor and an act of courage that will change the future of Rome.
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