The Ides of April

If you haven’t discovered [a:Lindsey Davis|24844|Lindsey Davis|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1269886022p2/24844.jpg]’s delightful informer (which is what a private investigator is called in Ancient Rome) Marcus Didius Falco, then you’ve missed a treat. I’ve read 14 out of the 20 she has written (I gather there’s a Falco companion, too) as well as another non-Falco story, and loved them all. Now she has gone into the next generation: Falco and Helena’s adopted daughter, Flavia Alba, has gone into the informer business too, even living in the same crummy old place that her father had when he was poor.

Flavia Alba is very much her own woman, and as you’d expect a spunky one at that. She has inherited much of the Falco show more obstinacy and disregard for propriety, which is dangerous in these times, since she is living under the rule of Domitian, a far crueller and more tyrannical (and paranoid) ruler than Vespasian.

Despite all this, Flavia is eking a living, and using a large amount of righteousness to do so. Her reaction to the unexplained death of a client – which means she has no chance of getting paid for investigations so far – leads her into close proximity with the gamut of officialdom in her quarter of Rome – and into more trouble than she imagined.

It was about chapter 24 when I realised she was probably following the wrong man, and although I was proved right when she realised around chapter 44, there is still plenty of excitement and adventure (and danger) in bringing the miscreant to rights. Exciting chases, Roman matrons reliving their youth through exotic ritual festivities, vigiles and other law enforcement falling foul of each other (often in a very foul manner), and an excellent twist in the tale kept me glued to the pages.

A delicious and dangerous romp through Roman ordure and officialdom, with added heartache and animal rescues. I’m already looking forward to the next one! show less

Flavia Albia, the Brittania-born orphan adopted by a Roman informer and his wife, can’t be choosy when it comes to cases. After all, men in Ancient Rome don’t give working women much respect, so most of her clients are women worried about wayward husbands or Romans needing copies of documents.

Flavia Albia ends up taking a case from a building contractor named Salvidia, a sour widow who specializes in corner-cutting, work delays and harsh dealing. When the middle-aged lady dies unexpectedly, Flavia Albia discovers that Salvidia is but one of quite a few apparently healthy individuals dying unexpectedly. For the most part, there doesn’t seem to be connections between the dead; who could be killing them and why?

Readers will suspect show more the killer before the penny drops for Flavia Albia, although she kicks herself for not figuring it out earlier. But there’s a second surprise at the end of the book, and author Lindsey Davis provides such a thorough and amusing glimpse of First Century Rome that readers will not care a whit.

I am doubly foolish. I bought The Ides of April on Audible as soon as it was released in 2013. I had read and adored all 20 of Davis’ novels featuring Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco, and I was eager to read about Falco’s daughter in a spin-off series. But other shiny things interrupted me.

I always thought there would be more Falco novels, and, as time wore on, I was a bit resentful of this upstart Flavia Albia. Little did I know, Falco does make cameo appearances in these novels. I found out when I read an ARC of Death on the Tiber. Then I realized how foolish I had been not to read the Flavia Albia books, which are just as cynical, just as humorous and nearly as delightful. But I do hope Falco gets one last novel in his own right. Until then, I will happily plough through Flavia Albia’s novels until I catch up. show less

Slightly rocky start to "Falco - the daughter"


I was delighted when I saw that Lyndsey Davis had launched a series featuring Falco's adopted daughter as an informer in imperial Rome.

I caught the Falco bug in 2002 when I found "The Silver Pigs" about ten years after everyone else. I snorted down the first four books that year and then settled down to read one or two books a year thereafter. Last year I read "Nemesis", the twentieth, last and the darkest book in the series, where Falco finally has to replace flippancy and stubborn insubordination with grim responsibility. He had become a Roman of substance, with things to lose and lies to hide. His days as an informer were clearly over. I regretted his passing but thought that Lyndsey show more Davis had done the right thing by him.

"The Ides of April" is set more than a decade later, The child Thalia was pregnant with in "Nemesis" is now an eleven year old boy. Flavia Albia is a twenty-eight year old widow and has been an informer for a number of years. Falco has "retired" to being an art dealer.

This gives everything a fresh start while providing enough continuity that I didn't feel set adrift. It really is "Falco: the next generation".

The plot here is clever and artfully told. Some of the pre-figuring is a little heavy-handed, making certain "reveals" a non-event but on the whole it adds to the light-hearted tone. There is a, perhaps inevitable, "Episode 1 Season 1" feel to the book but it promises well for the future.

I had two problems with the book: mixed feelings about Flavia Albia herself and mixed feelings about the narrator, I'm sure the two are related.

Flavia Albia is a misfit, neither fully Roman nor truly outsider. She is educated, ethical and cares for animals and small childern. She is also violent, well aware of the threats to women in Roman law and Roman manners, and almost insanely determined to put herself in harms way.

This conflicted nature was mirrored by the approach of the narrator. She read skillfully, coping with dialogue and action well, but, in a story told in the first person, the voice of the narrator BECOMES the character and I couldn't reconcile the upper class accent with the foul mouthed cynicism and violent behaviour. But perhaps that was the point.

I ended the book feeling entertained and wanting to read more but still uncertain about whether I liked Flavia Albia show less

Flavia Albia is following in her father Falco’s footsteps and has become an informer in ancient Rome. At the outset of the novel, she is engaged to fight off a compensation claim relating to a little boy’s death, when she finds her employer unexpectedly deceased, and a relative suspecting foul play. Soon more suspicious deaths are uncovered, and it becomes clear that the magistrates and the vigiles are trying to keep a spate of mysterious murders a secret from the general public. With the help of Andronicus and Tiberius, an archivist and a runner working for the local aedile, as well as a sympathetic investigator, they set about catching the killer loose on the Aventine.

This is Flavia Albia's first outing as the main character, and show more fans of Lindsey Davis's other creations, Marcus Didius Falco and his wife Helena Justina, will be eager to devour this first volume in what is promising to be a major new series, now that Falco and Helena have entered middle age and become more respectable, though I believe it will also appeal to readers who come to the series without prior introduction to Albia's family. It is an engaging, witty and irreverent romp through the streets of the Aventine in ancient Rome, which wears its historical knowledge lightly on its sleeve and has its tongue firmly placed in cheek, peppered with literary anachronisms. It is undemanding yet fun, in style comparable to Marilyn Todd's Claudia series, and I raced through the book in a matter of days, the pages turning as if by themselves. If I have one criticism, it is that the book suffers from a lack of credible alternative villains, and the mix-up over the identities is pretty transparent, yet Albia, an intelligent and astute woman, appears surprisingly dense in those respects, hence my rating it only four and a half stars.

Ever since the appearance of Marcus Didius Falco and Helena Justina in The Silver Pigs at the beginning of the 1990s, I've had a soft spot for Lindsey Davis's books of historical murder mysteries set in ancient Rome, and to me she will always be one of the pioneers of that particular genre. Some readers might find the style too flippant and scoff that the characters certainly would not have used the expressions "tarts" and "swanks" 2000 years ago, but then it does make for a refreshing change compared to other "serious" historical literature. With the new series centred around a strong female character in the person of Albia,and the promise of several recurring characters and a will they/won't they romance, I'm already looking forward to the second volume.

(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.) show less

Although this started off rather slowly for me, I ended out really getting caught up in it. I've enjoyed Davis' Marcus Didius Falco books, especially the early ones, tremendously, and I loved this new lead female character, Flavia Albia, and all the secondary characters. As usual, Davis' attention to detail about life in ancient Rome, shown, not lectured about, makes the time and place come to life(including the fact that murders like these were recorded in Rome).

P.S. Davis' list of characters at the beginning of the book is helpful and amusing, so don't forget to check it out.

At first, I was worried that this book would be a letdown. The Ides of April takes place twelve years after Davis' latest Falco novel, and the author is in the difficult position of needing to bring readers up to speed on the changes in Albia's life and in Rome itself while at the same time getting the plot going. The story was enjoyable enough, but kept pausing for an expository lump. (But then, I shouldn't be too critical of those lumps, because I did appreciate the help in getting oriented to this slightly different Rome.) Plus, Albia's narration sounded exactly like Falco's for the first third of the book or so,

As the book went on, things improved. The explanations were abandoned when they were no longer needed. Albia's voice became show more her own as she had the opportunity to express more opinions. I was pleased to see she also came across as more mature and experienced than she was in the Falco books, which fits with being twelve years older. And although it was a bit frustrating to hear about Falco and Helena only in passing, I think Davis made the right decision to leave them out of this book. It's not the next book in the Falco series, no matter how easy it is to think of it that way.

And no, the mystery isn't all that difficult to puzzle out. But then, I don't read the Falco books—or now the Albia books—for the mystery! show less

The book is set in Rome in 89AD. The author's first series was based on the experinces of Marcus Didius Falco, an investigtor. This book is the first in a second series based on the experiences of his adopted daughter, Flavia Albi, who as a young widow has taken up her father's line of work.

When a client dies unexpectedly Flavia is asked by the client's son-in-law to investigate the death. Told in first person we get all the ire of Flavia as a woman plying a trade and as an outsider born in Britian. Having learned from her father, she is clever and knows the tricks of the trade. Her character is determined and reckless bordering on foolish. Those make her an intersting character though I think the recklessness sometimes overdone. The show more mystery itself is good enough and the setting adds to the interest. The one problem I have is that I don't like Flavia! show less