A bit of a slow start for me on this one. We’re back in Rome, and Falco is tangling with a pair of legal eagle informers… and a suicide that he suspects may be murder.
Author page: The Accusers – Lindsey Davis
The Accusers – Lindsey Davis
The Jupiter Myth – Lindsey Davis
After solving the mystery of the Fishbourne Palace project overrun/overspend and keeping King Togidubnus onside, Falco and family decide to spend a few days in Londinium on their return home to Rome, visiting Helena’s uncle and aunt.
Unfortunately their arrival coincides with the apparent murder of King Togidubnus’ friend, Verovolcus, whose banishment to Gaul Falco engineered at the end of A Body in the Bath House.
Londinium, it seems, is starting to experience the less attractive side effects of Roman life – extortion rackets run by the big boys from Rome.
As Falco and Petro run parallel investigations, the will-they, won’t-they romance between Petro and Maia continues. We meet two ladies who loom large in Falco’s life – Chloris, Falco’s ex aka the notorious rope dancer, and a British orphan called Flavia Albia.
Author page: The Jupiter Myth – Lindsey Davis
Exactly – Simon Winchester
Interesting exploration of the concept, development and consequences of precision.
Let down by the irritating and distracting scattering of Americanisms throughout. Presumably intentionally.
Publisher page: Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World – Simon Winchester
The Shadow District – Arnaldur Indriðason
Icelandic crime writer Arnaldur Indriðason introduces us to two new pairs of investigators: Icelandic detective Flóvent and first generation Canadian Thorson who’s serving in the American military police come with a historical setting – we’re in Iceland in World War II when it is under occupation by British and then American forces; in the present, we meet retired Reykjavik detective Kónrad and, occasionally, his former colleague Marta.
The murder of an old man in the present triggers an investigation with connections back to Kónrad’s childhood in Reykjavik’s Shadow District and the discovery of the body of a young woman in the same area in 1944, whose murder was investigated by Flóvent and Thorson.
If you’re missing Erlender, try this! It’s the first in a new series. So far, so good.
Publisher page: The Shadow District – Arnaldur Indriðason
A Body in the Bath House – Lindsey Davis
With toddler Julia and new baby Sosia Favonia in tow, Falco and Helena travel to Britannia where Falco has been tasked with sorting out a building project over spend and over run – we know the site as Fishbourne Palace. So it’s worth it in the end.
Sister Maia finds herself with them too, as a result of some subterfuge by Helena in cahoots with Petro, both concerned by what spurned admirer Anacrites might be plotting.
And given the Bath House theme, don’t be surprised at who Falco finds loitering in Britannia …
Author page: A Body in the Bath House – Lindsey Davis