2008-05-16 Falco number 3 begins in a cell with a large rat ...

This is the third in a series of excellent detective stories set in Vespasian's Roman Empire and featuring the informer Marcus Didius Falco. Informers in ancient Rome were something between a private detective and a government spy.

At the start of the book Falco is sharing a cell in Lautumiae prison with a large rat, after his enemy and rival Anacrites (Vaspasian's chief spy) caught him out in a "minor accounting error." His girlfriend Helena Justina, a senator's daughter, has miscarried their child: to marry her he needs 400,000 sesterces to qualify for "Equestrian" (e.g. middle class)rank. Looking for business he soon finds himself surrounded by trouble including a huge fish, rent racketeers, a fortune-hunting redhear, ad a female contortionist who is an expert with snakes ...

I tried this series because I had enjoyed Ellis Peter's "Brother Cadfael" detective stories. Where Cadfael is excellent, Falco is brilliant. Ellis Peters herself (or to use her real name, Edith Pargeter) said of the early books of the series 'Lindsey Davis continues her exploration of Vespasian's Rome and Marcus Didius Falco's Italy with the same wit and gusto that made "The Silver Pigs" such a dazzling debut and her rueful, self-deprecating hero so irresistibly likeable.'

Funny, exciting, and based on a painstaking effort to re-create the world of 71 AD.

If you have met and enjoyed either the Cadfael or Thraxas series, this is even better.

It isn't absolutely essential to read these stories in sequence, as the mysteries Falco is trying to solve are all self-contained stories and each can stand on its own. Having said that, there is some ongoing development of characters and relationships and I think reading them in the right order does improve the experience.

The full Falco series, in chronological order, consists at the moment of:

The Silver Pigs
Shadows in Bronze
Venus in Copper
The Iron Hand of Mars
Poseidon's Gold
Last Act in Palmyra
Time to Depart
A Dying Light in Corduba
Three Hands in the Fountain
Two for the Lions
One Virgin Too Many
Ode to a Banker
A Body in the Bath house
The Jupiter Myth
The Accusers
Scandal taks a Holiday
See Delphi and Die
Saturnalia

I have read and can warmly recommend all of these.

Lindsey Davis has also written a historical novel set in the same timeframe called "The Course of Honor" which is about the love affair between Vespasian and his mistress Caenis. The author has taken the two sentences from Suetonius which are all we know of Caenis, and from them she has conjured the vital image of a woman beautiful in both form and personality and a charming love story.