Lindsey Davis Books In Order

Marcus Didius Falco Books In Publication Order

  1. The Silver Pigs (1989)
  2. Shadows in Bronze (1990)
  3. Venus in Copper (1991)
  4. The Iron Hand of Mars (1992)
  5. Poseidon’s Gold (1993)
  6. Last Act in Palmyra (1994)
  7. Time to Depart (1995)
  8. A Dying Light in Corduba (1996)
  9. Three Hands in the Fountain (1997)
  10. Two for the Lions (1998)
  11. One Virgin Too Many (1999)
  12. Ode to a Banker (2000)
  13. A Body in the Bathhouse (2001)
  14. The Jupiter Myth (2002)
  15. The Accusers (2003)
  16. Scandal Takes a Holiday (2004)
  17. See Delphi and Die (2005)
  18. Saturnalia (2007)
  19. Alexandria (2009)
  20. Nemesis (2010)

Marcus Didius Falco Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Falco: The Official Companion (2010)

Flavia Albia Mystery Books In Publication Order

  1. The Ides of April (2013)
  2. Enemies at Home (2014)
  3. The Spook Who Spoke Again (2015)
  4. Deadly Election (2015)
  5. The Graveyard of the Hesperides (2016)
  6. The Third Nero (2017)
  7. Pandora’s Boy (2018)
  8. Invitation to Die (2019)
  9. A Capitol Death (2020)
  10. The Grove of the Caesars (2020)
  11. A Comedy of Terrors (2021)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. The Course of Honour (1997)
  2. Rebels and Traitors (2009)
  3. Master and God (2012)

Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order

  1. A Cruel Fate (2014)
  2. Vesuvius by Night (2017)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. There Are Good Ships (2013)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. The Detection Collection (2005)

Marcus Didius Falco Book Covers

Marcus Didius Falco Non-Fiction Book Covers

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Lindsey Davis Books Overview

The Silver Pigs

One fine day in AD 70, scruffy, working class informer Marcus Didius Falco literally runs into a beautiful sixteen year old girl on the steps of the Forum. Sosia Camillina is on the run from a couple of street toughs, and after rescuing her, Falco wants to find out why. It soon becomes clear that Sosia knows a dangerous secret about a stockpile of silver ingots or ‘pigs’ and there are those who will stop at nothing to prevent her telling what she knows. Hoping for future favours from Sosia’s rich, influential uncle, Falco embarks on an intricate case of smuggling, murder and treason that reaches as far as the Emperor’s palace, and beyond the seven hills of Rome. Soon, Falco finds himself in an inhospitable outpost of the Empire called Britain, where the weather is filthy, the natives restless and the women angry. There, he meets Helena Justina, a spirited aristocrat who becomes an important part of his life. But, if he does not tread carefully, the treacherous puzzle of The Silver Pigs could be the death of him…
Anton Lesser stars as Falco with Fritha Goodey as Helena Justina in this BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisation of Lindsey Davis’s first Falco novel.

Shadows in Bronze

Rome, 71 A.D.: Against his better judgement, Marcus Didius Falco secretly disposes of a decayed corpse for the Emperor Vespasian, then heads for the beautiful Bay of Naples with his friend Petronius. He conveniently forgets to mention to his companion that this will be no holiday. They have been sent to investigate the murderous members of a failed coup, now sunning themselves in luxurious villas and on fancy yachts in Neapolis, Capreae and Pompeii. The idyllic seaside location fails to help his doomed romance with Helena Justina. The deeper he probes, the more it seems that Helena is inextricably connected to the elite plotters, in ways that the smitten Falco cannot bear to contemplate. Anton Lesser and Anna Madeley star in this BBC Radio full cast dramatization of Lindsey Davis’s bestselling novel featuring the Roman detective.

Venus in Copper

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 classic tale shows Falco at his very finest.

The Iron Hand of Mars

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.

Poseidon’s Gold

‘GREAT STUFF…
A classic hard boiled, smart mouth detective who happens to work in ancient Rome.’ Molly Ivins Los Angeles Daily NewsAfter six months in wild Germania, imperial gumshoe Marcus Didius Falco is back in Rome sweet Rome. But his apartment has been ransacked. And although he desperately needs 400,000 sesterces in order to marry his aristocratic love, Helena, his only client is his mother, who insists that he find out whether the scandalous claims against his dead brother, Festus, are true. Then the chief tarnisher of Festus’s good name is murdered, and Marcus becomes the prime suspect. Someone is definitely fiddling with the scales of justice. The more Marcus hunts for the thread that will lead him out of this doom laden labyrinth of misery and mystery, the less his life is worth. Except, as seems likely, as a meal for the Emperor’s hungry lions…
‘AN INTRIGUING TALE…
COMPULSIVE READING.’ Roanoke Times & World News’A VIVIDLY REALIZED IMPERIAL ROME NOISY, DENSE AND DANGEROUS.’ Publishers Weekly

Last Act in Palmyra

The spirit of adventure calls Marcus Didius Falco on a new spying mission for the Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. A dangerous brush with Brother, the sinister ruler of Nabataean Petra, sends Falco and his girlfriend Helena on a fast camel ride to Syria. There they join a travelling theatre, but bad acting and poor audiences are almost as bad as the scorpions. Then, as the killer hovers, Falco tries to write a play…

Time to Depart

Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine watch and Falco’s oldest friend, has finally nailed one of Rome s top criminals. Under Roman law, citizens are allowed Time to Depart into exile outside the Empire. One dark and gloomy dawn, Falco and Petro put the evil Balbinus on board a ship. But soon after, an outbreak of robbery and murder suggests a new criminal ring has moved in. Petro and Falco must descend into the underworld of Vespasian s Rome to investigate Davis s writing zings with fun. Daily Mail

A Dying Light in Corduba

Marcus Didius Falco is ready to make new contacts and start a new career, and a dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica seems like the perfect opportunity. But when two dinner guests are found beaten one dead Falco knows he cannot rest until he solves at least one more mystery.

Three Hands in the Fountain

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, and the next Games are only days away. As the heat rises in the Circus Maximus, they face a race against time and a strong test of their friendship. And they know that the sad*istic killer lurks somewhere on the festive streets of Rome-preparing to strike again.

Two for the Lions

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.

One Virgin Too Many

Marcus Didius Falco, the cynical, hard boiled investigator from the rough end of Rome, is back from a difficult mission in North Africa. As a result of his hard work, Emperor Vespasian awards Falco with the title of Procurator of Poultry for the Senate and People of Rome, or keeper of the city’s sacred geese. Not much of a salary, of course, but the title does give him a better standing with his in laws. Now, all Falco wants is to spend time relaxing at home with his family. But there is no rest for Falco as he finds himself drawn into the world of the Roman religious cults…
and the murder of a member of the Sacred Brotherhoods. And then there’s the disappearance of the most likely new candidate for the Order of Vestal Virgins. Falco soon uncovers a sinister cover up and is too deeply involved to back away from the truth.

Ode to a Banker

When street smart Marcus Didius Falco is coerced into a public reading of his satires, he couldn’t feel worse. Yet his scribbling is met with rousing applause…
and an offer by Chrysippus, esteemed banker, patron of the arts, and scroll merchant, to publish his work. Et tu, Brute! A euphoric Falco then discovers that Chrysippus expects to be paid for putting the budding author’s work on papyrus. Falco is no Horace, but he has his pride. His ensuing altercation with the publisher makes him a suspect when Chyrsippus is found brutally murdered a classic body in the library. Fortunately Falco has an alibi, and thanks to his friends in the Watch, he also lands the job as the homicide’s official investigator.

A Body in the Bathhouse

In another classical crime romp this time in Roman Britain Falco investigates a spate of killings, only to find himself next on the assassins’ list. Marcus Didius Falco, once a common informer, now middle class, discovers that newly acquired rank brings associated problems, the most gruesome of which is a corpse buried under the tiles of his new bath house. The contractors have fled to Britain where, as the Fates have it, Falco is ordered.A local chief and ally of the Romans is having a palace built by the Emperor Vespasian. However, the project is running late, work is slipshod, and fatal accidents keep happening. Somewhere on the site are the murderers who may be behind this latest spate of killings. Somewhere in the forefront, troubleshooting for the Emperor, is Falco, without an ally and now next on the list for assassination.

The Jupiter Myth

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 must defuse. Making matters worse, the town has become a magnet for criminals from Rome…
and one murder leads to others. With the army turning a blind eye, Falco and his partner Petronius must lead the hunt for gangsters intent on taking over the city. From the wharves beside the River Thamesis to the old haunts of organized crime back home in Italy, Falco and Petronius face danger and death in every corner. Will they be able to return order to the city before they lose everything they hold dear?

The Accusers

Fresh from his trip to Britain, Marcus Didius Falco needs to re establish his presence in Rome. A minor role in the trial of a senator entangles him in the machinations of Silius Italicus and Paccius Africanus two real life lawyers at the top of their trade. These notorious ex consuls play a dangerous game, where success brings rich pickings but a mistrial or a wrong verdict entails huge financial penalties. The senator is convicted but then dies, apparently by suicide. It may be a legal move to protect his heirs, but Silius hires Falco and his young associates to prove it was murder. As Falco shows off his own talents in the role of advocate, he exposes himself to powerful elements in Roman law: offending the wrong people may lead to charges he has not bargained for, in a contest that threatens financial ruin for himself and his family…
From the Paperback edition.

Scandal Takes a Holiday

As an informer a private detective Marcus Didius Falco has an insider’s knowledge of the Empire s less than glorious side. He s also been in the middle of its most dangerous secrets more than once. So when he s hired to find notorious gossip scribe Infamia, Marcus figures the missing muckraker is either taking advantage of a vacation bribe from some wealthy wife or resting up from injuries inflicted by some senator s henchmen. But instead of earning an easy fee, Marcus soon finds himself at odds against a sinister ring of pirates preying on the wealthy; a ruthlessly vulgar construction magnate…
and several of his own less than reputable family members. And what he uncovers will lead him through the dark byways and underground of the Empire s busiest seaport where a cold blooded killer with nothing to lose waits to bury one cynical informer for good…

See Delphi and Die

Humour, surprises and domestic irony await Roman sleuth Falco as he attempts to solve the disappearance of two newlyweds on their honeymoon trip to Ancient Greece. With safe seas, good roads, a common currency, and lots of interesting conquered territory, the Romans naturally invented tourism. They believed in a life of leisure fine for those who could afford it and some would set off on their travels for maybe five years at a time. As these ancient culture vultures descended on the sights, the tour guide was born to cater to their needs. Marcus, you must help me! Stunned by the dramatic appeal from his otherwise cool mother in law, Marcus Didius Falso cannot resist. His brother in law, Aulus, has been diverted from his route to Athens University by a man whose newly married daughter and her husband have disappeared while visiting the Olympic Games as part of their wedding trip. Suspecting a classic cover up, Aulus enrolls 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. From the Hardcover edition.

Saturnalia

It’s 76 A.D. during the reign of Vespasian and the Roman holiday of Saturnalia has begun. The days are short; the nights are for wild parties. But not for Marcus Didius Falco. Falco is an informer by trade his job is to uncover unwelcome truths and deal with sensitive situations, frequently at the behest of the imperial government. And just such a case has arisen. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to adorn his eventual Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. But everything goes wrong from there first she acquires a mysterious illness, then a young man is horrendously murdered and she escapes from house arrest.
Marcus Didius Falco, hired to find her and return her to custody before Saturnalia is over, is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites. The two of them are in a race against time to find the fugitive before the public learns of the situation, making the government look stupid. Falco, however, has other priorities. Helena’s brother Justinus has also vanished, perhaps fatally involved once more with the great lost love of his youth.
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

Alexandria

The new Falco novel finds Lindsey Davis’s First Century detective Marcus Didius Falco and his partner Helena Justina investigating crime in the famous city of Alexandria. For Marcus Didius Falco, agent to the Emperor Vespasian, Alexandria holds fascination and a hint of fear. Beautiful, historic and famously unruly, the great cosmopolitan city wears Roman rule lightly. While his wife, Helena Justina, wants to see the Lighthouse and the Pyramids, Falco has a mission at the Great Library that soon turns out to involve much more than stock taking its innumerable scrolls.A mysterious death in the library brings him into conflict with the darker side of academic life. With forensic science in its infancy, even an illegal autopsy fails to find real answers. To solve the crime for the Roman Prefect if indeed it is a crime Falco will have to draw on his own doggedness and intuition, at first supported only by Helena s commonsense and the loyal backup of her brother Aulus, who goes undercover as a student among the in fighting academics. The philosophers hunger after fame and fortune so ruthlessly there is soon another terrifying death, this time at the royal zoo. It so happens that his Uncle Fulvius is living in Alexandria with his partner Cassius. Their involvement in local affairs already seems shady when they are joined by their crony, Falco s father, Geminus, a man well known for disreputable business practices. If the irrepressible Pa has had a hand in events at the library, Falco knows he stands no chance. From the Hardcover edition.

Nemesis

The much awaited latest installment in this New York Times bestselling series brings Marcus Didius Falco back to the city of Rome and its deadly, convoluted intrigues In the high summer of A.D. 77, Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. Newly bereaved and facing unexpected upheavals in his life, it is a relief for him to consider someone else’s misfortunes. A middle aged couple who supplied statues to his father, Geminus, have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. They had an old feud with a bunch of notorious freedmen, the Claudii, who live rough in the pestilential Pontine Marshes, terrorizing the neighborhood. When a mutilated corpse turns up near Rome, Falco and his vigiles friend Petronius investigate, even though it means traveling in the dread marshes. But just as they are making progress, the Chief Spy, Anacrites, snatches their case away from them. As his rivalry with Falco escalates, he makes false overtures of friendship, but fails to cover up the fact 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 when did that 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. After Alexandria, the first book in this long running series to hit the New York Times Bestseller list, Lindsey Davis brings her beloved characters and series back to Rome in a book that brings together a number of long running plot threads to surprising and compelling conclusions.

Falco: The Official Companion

As the girl came running up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes…
So, in 1989, readers were introduced to Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman informer, as he stood on the steps of the Temple of Saturn, looking out across the Forum: the heart of his world. Twenty years and twenty books later, Falco fans want a companion volume. Only here will you learn the author’s private background, including her descent from a failed assassin and how atheism improved her knitting. Here too are the real glories and heartache involved in research and creation: why the baby had to be born in Barcelona, which plots evolved from intense loathing of management trainees, what part a thermal vest played in the iconic Falco’s conception. It can’t be a complete handbook to ancient Rome, but it covers perennial issues. There are a hundred illustrations, some specially commissioned, others from family archives. Enlightening quotations come from the Falco books and from eminent sources: Juvenal, through Chandler, to 1066 and All That. Readers have asked for this book. Their paranoid, secretive author agrees it is now or never. This is time to spill beans on the travertine…

The Course of Honour

In ancient Rome, ambitious citizens who aspired to political power, to become one of the ruling elite a senator, had to follow what was known as The Course of Honor. This course had only one unbreakable rule: a senator is forbidden to marry a slave, even a freed slave. When the soldier Vespasian meets an interesting girl in the imperial palace, he doesn t know she is a slave in the household of the imperial family. But he is inexorably drawn in by her intelligence and charisma. Yet as Vespasian slowly rises from near obscurity and as emperor after emperor plays out their own deadly, seductive games of lust and conquest, the future is something no one could imagine. No one could believe that a country born army man might win the throne no one, that is, except a slave girl who, with the future Emperor, begins a daring course of honor of her own.

Rebels and Traitors

A groundbreaking historical novel set in the English Civil War. Rebels and Traitors is a groundbreaking departure for this most admired of British authors, returning to Lindsey Davis first love in historical fiction, the English Civil War. Sweeping in scope and fraught with the same drama and passion, her epic novel does the same for this conflict as Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind did for the American Civil War. The book tells with startling realism what it was like to have fought in the front line of the battles and politics of the era. Through the story of a man and a woman, Gideon Jukes and Juliana Lovell, caught on opposite sides of the Parliamentarian/Royalist divide but fated to be brought together by adversity, loss and mutual attraction. But before this can happen, the terrible events of the seven years that King Charles waged war on his own people must be endured, culminating the day in January 1649 when the world was turned upside down and the King was executed. It is in this crucible that Gideon s and Juliana s love will be forged. From the Hardcover edition.

Master and God

From New York Times bestselling novelist Lindsey Davis comes an epic novel of first century Rome and the Emperor Domitian, known to all of the Roman world as Master and God Set in the reign of the Emperor Domitian in first century Rome, Master and God is Lindsey Davis’s meticulously researched epic novel of the life and times surrounding the last of the Flavian dynasty of emperors. Gaius Vinius is a reluctant Praetorian Guard the Emperor s personal guard and a man with a disastrous marriage history. Flavia Lucilla is also in the imperial court and she is responsible not only for having created the ridiculous hairstyle worn by the imperial ladies but for also making toupees for the balding and increasingly paranoid emperor. The two of them are brought together in an unlikely manner a devastating fire in Rome which then leads to a lifelong friendship. Together they watch Domitian s once talented rule unravel into madness and cruelty, until the people closest to him conspire to delete him from history. As an imperial bodyguard, Vinius then faces a tough decision. Master and God is a compelling novel of the Roman Empire from the height of power to the depths of madness told from the perspective of two courtiers and unlikely friends who together are the witnesses to history.

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