Линдси Дэвис - все книги по циклам и сериям | Книги по порядку

Семидесятый год нашей эры. Рим. Город городов. Столица великой империи. Здесь царят весьма и весьма вольные нравы. Здесь государственные тайны обсуждаются в спальнях куртизанок и актеров. Здесь плетутся бесчисленные заговоры и интриги, а состояния наживаются самыми неожиданными - и далеко не всегда законными - способами. И конечно, у "частного информатора" Дидия Фалкона всегда много работы - ведь в Риме хватает и неверных жен, и легкомысленных любовников, и проворовавшихся управляющих, и нечистых на руку торговцев... Фалкон привык распутывать крайне сомнительные дела. Но розыск серебряных слитков, похищенных с копей далекой…

Семидесятые годы нашей эры. Рим. Город городов. Столица великой империи. Здесь царят весьма и весьма вольные нравы. Здесь государственные тайны обсуждаются в спальнях куртизанок и актеров. У "частного информатора" Дидия Фалкона всегда много работы - ведь в Риме хватает и неверных жен, и легкомысленных любовников, и проворовавшихся управляющих, и нечистых на руку торговцев. Однако денег эта работа приносит мало. Но наконец-то Фалкону улыбнулась удача: его путешествие вокруг Неаполитанского залива оплатил сам император Веспасиан. Возлюбленная Фалкона - божественно красивая Елена Юстина - платит ему взаимностью... Но в…

Rome, AD 71. Marcus Didius Falco is deperate to leave the notorious Lautumiae prison - though being bailed out by his mother is a slight indignity...

Things go from bad to worse though when a group of nouveau riche ex-slaves hire him to outwit a fortune-hunting redhead, whose husbands have a habit of dying accidently, leaving him up against a female contortionist, her extra-friendly snake, indigestible cakes and rent racketeers. And, all the while, trying to lure Helena Justina to live with him, a dangerous proposition given the notorius instability of Roman real estate. In a case of murder as complicated as he ever faced, this Lindsey Davis' classic tale Venus in Copper shows Falco at his very finest.

When Germanic troops in the service of the Empire begin to rebel, and a Roman general disappears, Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can trust: Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer whose rates are low enough that even the stingy Vespasian is willing to pay them.

To Falco, an undercover tour of Germania is an assignment from Hades. On a journey that only a stoic could survive, Falco meets with disarray, torture, and murder. His one hope: in the northern forest lives a powerful Druid priestess who perhaps can be persuaded to cease her anti-Rome activities and work for peace. Which Falco is eagerly hoping for as, back in Rome, the Titus Caesar is busy trying to make time with Helena Justina, a senator's daughter and Falco's girlfriend.

A.D. 72: To many, Rome is the center of the Empire. To Marcus Didius Falco, Imperial spy and casual informer, it is the home of his mother, the domineering matriarch who has kept the Didius clan together since her husband absconded with a redhead some twenty years before. Trouble is the last thing Falco wants on his return from a six-month mission to the German legions. But trouble is in store: his apartment has been wrecked by squatters and an ex-legionnaire friend of his colorfully heroic brother, Festus, has parked himself in the only other possible refuge, his mother's kitchen. What's worse, the man is demanding money allegedly owed him and his legion from one of Festus's wild schemes. Worse still, the only client Falco can get is his mother, who wants him to clear the family name. But little does he realize that trouble is only just beginning: the legionnaire is found viciously stabbed to death, with Falco the prime suspect. His friend Petronius is investigating the case, and while the intrepid Falco treads the dingy streets of Rome, his girlfriend, Helena Justina, is arrested as an accomplice, leaving her aristocratic family even more certain that this plebeian will not make a suitable husband. Even if her family were to agree to the marriage, Falco still needs an impossible 400,000 sesterces to buy himself into the middle rank. And to clear the family name, he has to find Geminus, the father who left all those years before, for he is the only one who knows what Festus was really up to. Compelled to face the past he deplores and a future he despairs of, Falco has just three days to prove he is not a murderer, to trace the real suspect, amass evidence, and win a fortune...

It's AD 72 Rome, and Emperor Vespasian refuses to elevate sometime sleuth Marcus Didius Falco to the middle rank. Yet hope springs eternal, so when Vespasian's chief spy offers Falco an assignment in the East, he jumps at the chance. But his new assignment soon becomes a nightmare when he finds the corpse of a Roman playwright in a sacred pool. To ferret out the murderer, Falco joins the traveling theater group.

Balbinus Pius, the dirtiest underworld organizer in Emperor Vespasian's Rome, has been convicted of a capital crime at last, thanks to public servant Petronius Longus, better known to Marcus Didius Falco as his old army buddy Petro. A quirk of Roman law, however, allows every citizen condemned to death time to depart. In other words, he has a chance to skip town. Taking full advantage of the law, Bilbinus embarks on a ship fit for a king, accompanied by his loyal factotums. From the wharf, Falco and Petro watch Balbinus sail off to exile instead of Hades. And the race is on among his competitors to take over his old operations. It begins with a colossal heist at the Emporium, a major trading center. As Falco tries to stem the escalating crime wave, he faces another task almost as daunting: find a new apartment for himself and the woman he loves, a senator's daughter forbidden by Roman law to a man of Falco's rank. To make matters even more dangerous, Helen believes she's pregnant. Falco's head - along with other body parts - could be on the chopping block if her condition becomes public.

Nobody is poisoned at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers; the assassination attempt comes afterward. Falco ought to know, he is at the banquet along with some unexpected guests, including Anacrites the Chief Spy and Falco's own hostile brat of a brother-in-law, Aelianus. Right from the first, Falco eyes the entertainment - which includes a sinuous Spanish dancer scantily dressed as Diana the Huntress - with suspicion. When Anacrites is gravely wounded later that night, the only clue is a golden arrow last seen in the bow of the party dancer, a lady now on her way to Corduba, Spain. As it happens, Falco is facing fatherhood for the first time and has promised his wife to stay by her side. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, Falco's only solution is to take the patrician Helena with him, a decision that may prove to be a colossal mistake. For as Helena and Falco track the exotic dancer through the Iberian Peninsula, they discover a slippery scandal in the olive trade, a chilling trail of murders, and a killer without a conscience...a remorseless and cunning villain much too dangerous for a man distracted by a very pregnant wife.

Marcus Didius 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 Maximum, they face a race against time and a strong test of their friendship. They know the sadistic killer lurks somewhere in the festive streets of Rome — preparing to strike again.

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 uncovers 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 arena in North Africa.

A frightened child approaches Roman informer Marcus Didius 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, he 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.

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.

‘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…

‘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.

‘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.

‘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.

‘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…

‘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…

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.

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, nptorious 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...