Линдси Дэвис - циклы произведений

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 действительности цель "увеселительной поездки" - раскрыть заговор, направленный против самого императора. Заговор, в который вовлечены, похоже, не только самые знатные и богатые римляне, но и Елена Юстина...

Things are going well for Marcus Didius Falco, ancient Rome's investigator: he hates sharing a cell with a rodent, although being bailed by his old mother is almost as embarrassing; his highborn girlfriend can't decide if she wants him and Titus Caesar's reward for past services is disappointing to say the least.
Hoping for a better life, or at least a better apartment, he takes on new clients.
On the elegant slopes of the Pincian Hill, three freedmen with two flashy wives are under siege by a clever redhead. Severina Zotica has a foul-mouthed parrot, an odd connection with a snake dancer - and a very suspicious past.
As he pursues this flame-haired fortune-hunter, Falco finds himself beset by violent rent-racketeers, poisoners, and women without consciences who have dangerous designs on him...

AD 71, Germania Libera: dark dripping forests, inhabited by bloodthirsty barbarians and legendary wild beasts, a furious prophetess who terrorises Rome, and the ghostly spirits of slaughtered Roman legionaries.
Enter Marcus Didius Falco, an Imperial agent on a special mission: to find the absconding commander of a legion whose loyalty is suspect.
Easier said than done, thinks Marcus, as he makes his uneasy way down the Rhenus, trying to forget that back in sunny Rome his girlfriend Helena Justina is being hotly pursued by Titus Caesar.
His mood is not improved when he discovers his only allies are a woefully inadequate bunch of recruits, their embittered centurion, a rogue dog, and its innocent young master; just the right kind of support for an agent unwillingly trying to tame the Celtic hordes...

‘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 originaltask, 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.

‘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...