"When Marcus Didius Falco, a Roman 'informer'
who has a nose for trouble that's sharper than most, encounters Sosia Camillina
in the Forum, he senses immediately all is not right with the pretty girl. She
confesses to him that she is fleeing for her life, and Falco makes the rash
decision to rescue her—a decision he will come to regret. For Sosia bears a
heavy burden: as heavy as a pile of stolen Imperial ingots, in fact. Matters
just get more complicated when Falco meets Helena Justina, a Senator's daughter
who is connected to the very same traitors he has sworn to expose. Soon Falco
finds himself swept from the perilous back alleys of Ancient Rome to the silver
mines of distant Britain—and up against a cabal of traitors with blood on their
hands and no compunction whatsoever to do away with a snooping plebe like
Falco."
The first Flaco book offers a trove of history about
Roman times, but the mystery part –the murder of a young woman and theft of
silver- is not particularly gripping or even interesting. Being the first in a
long running series, The Silver Pigs would’ve stopped me from reading any
further back in 1989 when the book was released. However, sometimes these books don’t come out fully formed and I would
be willing to give Lindsey Davis the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I should’ve
started somewhere else?
I mean, she gives Falco a glib tongue, which generally
works in most detective series. But I found Davis concentrating too much on
historical aspects that, while far from dull, do slow down her narrative. And I
also realize that Davis reconfigured her original idea of a novel about Vespasian –the
Roman emperor from 69–79, the fourth, and last, in the Year of the Four
Emperors- and his lover Antonia Caenis into a historical whodunnit because she
could not find a publisher for her original idea, but at times those two genres seemed to battle for
control. I wanted a mystery, I got a history lesson.
I’ve acquired two other Lindsey Davis books, which I’ll
try to get to in 2020.
1 comment:
I read part of this series in high school and I loved it. Thanks for posting.
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