In Lindsey Davis's next book in the beloved Flavia Albia Series, Desperate Undertaking, a mad killer (or killers!) is strewing bodies around in the most gruesome of manners and, true to form, it is up to Flavia Albia to determine what is really going on and stop this bacchanal of death.In the first century, under Domitian's reign, strange and brutal goings on are nothing new in Rome. Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken over her father's business as a private informer but she tries to shy away from the brutal, the complicated, and the political - because nothing good comes of any of them. Unfortunately, she's not very good at turning them down.This time a commission shows up on her doorstep - someone is staging brutal murders in some of the most beautiful buildings in Rome, each staging different. So far, the only clue was the phrase that one survivor managed to croak, "The undertaker did it..." With little to go on and bodies starting...

SUMMARY:In the long, hot Roman summer of AD74, Marcus Didius 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 golden opportunity that rapidly palls. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates him in a gruesome literary murder, so when Petronius Longus, the over-worked vigiles enquiry chief, commissions him to investigate, Falco is forced to accept.

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...

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?

"Melds scrupulous research, arch banter, caustic characters, and strong plotting...Flavia Albia is delightful, trickster-y company to spend time with." — New York Times Book ReviewIn Rome, 89 A.D., poisonings, murders, and a bloody gang war of retribution breaks out during the festival of Saturnalia, and when her husband, Tiberius, becomes a target, it's time for Flavia Albia to take matters into her own hands — in Lindsey Davis's next historical mystery, A Comedy of Terrors. Flavia Albia, daughter and successor of private informer Marcus Didius Falco is twiddling her thumbs with no clients during the December festival of Saturnalia. But that doesn't mean all is quiet. Her husband Tiberius and the Fourth Cohort are battling organized crime interests that are going to war over the festival nuts. A series of accidental poisonings, then bloody murders of rival nut-sellers, and finally a gruesome warning to Tiberius from the hidden...

In Rome, ruled by the erratic Emperor Domitian, Flavia Albia is dragged into the worst sort of investigation—a politically charged murder—in Lindsey Davis's next historical mystery, A Capitol Death.A man falls to his death from the Tarpeian Rock, which overlooks the Forum in the Capitoline Hill in Ancient Rome. While it looks like a suicide, one witness swears that she saw it happen and that he was pushed. Normally, this would attract very little official notice but this man happened to be in charge of organizing the Imperial Triumphs demanded by the emperor. The Emperor Domitian, autocratic and erratic, has decided that he deserves two Triumphs for his so-called military victories. The Triumphs are both controversial and difficult to stage because of the not-so-victorious circumstances that left them without treasure or captives to be paraded through the streets. Normally, the investigation would be under the auspices of her new(ish)...

The 20th book in the bestselling Falco detective series.In the high summer of 77AD, 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. They had an old feud with a bunch of notorious freedmen, the Claudii, who live rough in the pestilential Pontine Marshes, terrorising the neighbourhood.When a mutilated corpse turns up near Rome, Falco and his vigiles friend Petronius investigate, even though it means travelling in the dread marshes. But just as they are making progress, the Chief Spy, Anacrites, snatches their case away from them. As his rivalry with Falco escalates, he makes false overtures of friendship, but fails to cover up the fact 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 when did that 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.From Publishers WeeklyDavis immediately engages the reader's sympathies in her fine 20th ancient Roman historical featuring informer Marcus Didius Falco (after 2009's Alexandria) with her moving depiction of the death of Falco's newborn son. When Falco seeks out his father to share the horrible news, he's stunned to learn that "Pa" has also died. While Falco is coming to terms with the double tragedy, an associate asks him to help look into the murder of Julius Modestus, an art dealer whose mutilated body was dumped in a mausoleum. Falco learns that Modestus and his wife vanished after making complaints about the difficult Claudii, freedmen who originally came from the imperial family, with whom the couple had a border dispute in the Pontine Marshes. With its tricky, suspenseful plot, this entry deserves to join its immediate predecessor on bestseller lists, though some modern-sounding prose ("Have they lawyered up?" one character asks) won't please every historical fan. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistIt’s the summer of AD 77, and Roman “informer” (read PI) Marcus Didius Falco is going through a rough time. Shortly after the death of his infant son, he receives news that his father has died. Alas, crime waits for no man, and Falco must grapple with his grief as he investigates the suspicious disappearance of a middle-age couple who supplied statues to his father. (It seems they got on the bad side of the Claudii, a flock of sinister freedmen.) At the same time, the discovery of a mutilated corpse at a graveyard prompts rumors of a serial killer. Marcus’ longtime friend and colleague Petronius helps him gather clues on the murder case, but it’s not long before Anacrites, Rome’s loathsome chief spy, steals it out from under them. On the domestic front, Falco is troubled by the lingering malaise of his notoriously spirited wife, Helena. Nemesis is a fitting title for this solid twentieth entry in British historian Davis’ standout series, in which Falco encounters a collection of cold-blooded and bloody annoying foes. --Allison Block

In 89 B.C.E., Roman emperor Domitian throws a terrifying banquet for the Senators—one that everyone is certain they won't survive—in Lindsey Davis's Invitation to Die: A Novella of Ancient Rome.The emperor Domitian is paranoid, autocratic, and violent. And he has a special grudge against both the Senate and the Camilli. So when a strange invitation to a banquet appears given by Domitian, it's not good news for Aulus and Quintus, the Camillus brothers. Both are Senators, brothers-in-law of Marcus Didius Falco, a disreputable private informer with his own past with Domitian, and nephews to a man who plotted to depose Domitian's father. But they dare not refuse an invitation from mercurial and vengeful Domitian. And their concerns were well founded—Domitian has gathered the most powerful men in Rome for what is known to history as The Black Banquet. The place markers are tombstones with names on it, the servers are...

As the girl came running up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes...So, in 1989, readers were introduced to Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman informer, as he stood on the steps of the Temple of Saturn, looking out across the Forum: the heart of his world. Twenty years and twenty books later, Falco fans want a companion volume.Only here will you learn the author's private background, including her descent from a failed assassin and how atheism improved her knitting. Here too are the real glories and heartache involved in research and creation: why the baby had to be born in Barcelona, which plots evolved from intense loathing of management trainees, what part a thermal vest played in the iconic Falco's conception. It can't be a complete handbook to ancient Rome, but it covers perennial issues. There are a hundred illustrations, some specially commissioned, others from family archives. Enlightening quotations come from the Falco books and from eminent sources: Juvenal, through Chandler, to *1066 and All That.*Readers have asked for this book. Their paranoid, secretive author agrees it is now or never. Time to spill beans on the travertine...Review“Davis makes Rome live.”  —Washington Post Book World"What makes Davis's long-standing series so indelible is the expert blend of Falco's wisecracking observations and crazy family life with some masterly suspense. . . . The mystery is intricately plotted, the characters are well drawn, and Falco is as engaging a protagonist as ever, still tough but wiser and more reflective, too. Another winner for historical mystery fans."  —Library Journal on Alexandria“Davis’s vision of everyday life in the Roman Empire is superb. I haven’t read historical fiction this good since I, Claudius by Robert Graves and The Persian Boy by Mary Renault.”  —Detroit Free Press on Shadows in BronzeAbout the AuthorLindsey Davis's bestselling Marcus Didius Falco mystery series features laid-back First-Century Roman detective Falco and his partner Helena Justina, plus friends, relations, pets and bitter enemy the Chief Spy. She is also the author of Rebels and Traitors. She has won the CWA Historical Dagger, the Dagger in the Library, and a Sherlock for Falco as Best Detective awards. She has been Honorary President of the Classical Association and is a past Chair of the Crimewriters' Association. In 2009 she was awarded the Premio de Honor de Novela Historica by the Spanish City of Zaragoza for her career as a historical novelist.

In first century Rome, Flavia Albia takes on an easy case that soon proves to be anything but as, at every turn, bodies—old and new—dog her path.Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken over her father's business as a private informer. She only has two hard and fast rules - avoid political cases and family cases because nothing good comes of either of them. Unfortunately, since Albia isn't good at avoiding either, it's really more of a guideline. So when her Aunt Junia demands Albia track down a couple of deadbeats who owe her money, it's an offer Albia can't refuse.It turns out to be a relatively easy job, requiring only some half-hearted blackmail, and it leads to some new work - tracking down some essential paperwork for the debtor family. But nothing is truly easy in Rome - if Albia doesn't find the paperwork that proves that family's ancestor was a properly freed slave, the family could lose everything. The more she digs, the more...

Marcus Didius Falco, the cynical, hard-boiled investigator from the rough end of Rome, is back from a difficult mission in North Africa. As a result of his hard work, Emperor Vespasian awards Falco with the title of Procurator of Poultry for the Senate & People of Rome, or keeper of the city's sacred geese. Not much of a salary, of course, but the title does give him a better standing with his in-laws. Now, all Falco wants is to spend time relaxing at home with his family. But there is no rest for Falco as he finds himself drawn into the world of the Roman religious cults...& the murder of a member of the Sacred Brotherhoods. And then there's the disappearance of the most likely new candidate for the Order of Vestal Virgins. Falco soon uncovers a sinister cover-up & is too deeply involved to back away from the truth.