Marcus Didius Falco mysteries

It's the first century AD, and Marcus Didius Falco, ancient Rome's favorite son and sometimes palace spy, has just been dealt a lousy blow from the gods: the beautiful, high-born Helena Justina has left him in the dust. So when the Emperor Vespasian calls upon him to investigate an act of treason, Falco is more than ready for a distraction. Disguised as an idle vacationer in the company of his best friend Petronius, Falco travels from the Isle of...

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 Germany 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...

Last Act in Palmyra is the sixth book in the bestselling Falco series by Lindsey Davis. The spirit of adventure calls Marcus Didius Falco on a new spying mission for Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He picks 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...

In this eighth mystery featuring hard-boiled Roman PI Marcus Didius Falco, Davis creates a chiaroscuro world of evil plots and dark humor, as olive oil whets a villain's appetite for power and his taste for murder. Surprisingly, nobody is poisoned at the Society of Olive Oil Producers banquet-the attempted murder of Rome's chief spy occurs immediately afterward. Suspicion falls, quick as the Italian night, on the dinner's sinuous dancer, a lady who...

Caged in frustration by having to work alongside the reptilian Chief Spy Anacrites, Marcus Didius Falco devises the perfect escape; become a tax collector in the "Great Census of A.D. 73". If his services are accepted by Vespasian and Titus, he may even rise high enough in the middle ranks to marry his long-suffering companion, Helena Justina. But a toothier job roars his way when the Empire's prized lion is mysteriously stabbed to death and Rome's

...

The funny, astute, and hard-boiled detective Marcus Didius Falco now ventures into a new arena, the publishing world of AD 74, to prove that ars longa, vita brevis...and murder is timeless. Can a tough detective possess the soul of a poet? After a public reading brings him rousing applause, Falco receives an offer to have his work published. But his ego takes a beating when the banker Chrysippus demands payment for putting the verse on papyrus. Hell...

Lindsey Davis’ popular Marcus Didius Falco series continues with a classic noir tale of gangsters, gladiators, and romance.
For Falco, an attempt at relaxing while visiting his wife Helena’s relatives in Britain turns serious when a murder is discovered. King Togidubnus, the renegade henchman of Rome’s vital ally, has been stuffed head-first down a barroom well—leading to a tricky diplomatic situation which Falco...

Ancient Rome’s organized crime syndicates have never been more dangerous or more cunning than in Lindsey Davis’s latest adventure featuring First Century sleuth Marcus Didius Falco.
One of Marcus Didius Falco’s guiltier pleasures is reading the scandal column in the Daily Gazette, which is always conveniently found in Rome’s Forum. When the scandal column’s pseudonymous scribe Infamia goes missing in seaside...

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. Marcus Didius Falco is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites, in a race to find the fugitive before...

In the high summer of 77 AD, Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. A middle-aged couple who supplied statues to his father have disappeared. They had an old feud with a bunch of notorious freedmen, the Claudii, who terrorize the neighborhood. When a mutilated corpse turns up, Falco and his friend Petronius investigate. But just as they are making progress, the Chief Spy, Anacrites, snatches the case away. He makes false...