Time to Depart

I've always enjoyed the caustic narration of Marcus Didius Falco as he goes down the mean streets of Rome, a much despised but heavily relied on Informer, tracking people down and solving mysteries. It's nice to return to that milieu in audio format, a throroughly enjoyable, and often extremely funny, comfort-listen that evokes a lived-in seedy side of the glorious empire, charmingly shabby and unapologetic, rigidly stratified, and occasionally downright horrifying. In this outing, a local gangster is sent into exile, and someone seems to immediately step up to fill the void left behind, but who, and how? Surrounded by his demanding, mostly useless and annoying family, his dearest friendship threatened, his lovely Helena exercising show more immense grace and patience, Marcus is swamped and fed up, but it all ends with a wedding, albeit a uniquely Roman one, so that's okay. show less

After several months in the east, informer Marcus Didius Falco lands in the midst of an organized crime investigation immediately upon his return to Rome. The corruption may have infiltrated the ranks of the vigiles, so Falco is tasked with investigating the investigators. This pits Falco against his best friend, Petronius “Petro.” Will their friendship survive? On the domestic front, Marcus and Helena search for new lodgings in anticipation of an addition to the family.

I like the way that Davis alternates the settings between Rome and its provinces. The books set in Rome allow Davis to develop the secondary characters, including Marcus’s many sisters and their children and Helena’s parents and brothers. The books set in other show more locations allow Davis to explore the far reaches of the Roman Empire. This pattern works well for me. show less

I love Falco. Reading this book was like catching up with an old friend. If possible his wit has become even more acerbic than in his previous outings. This instalment focuses on Falco's relationship with his friend Petronious Longius and his increased domestication by the beautiful Helena Justina. I can only hope that these books continue to be as enjoyable as I progress through the series.

Maybe I wasn't in the mood.

This episode takes place entirely in Rome, where a violent criminal mastermind has been sentenced to exile on pain of death. Petra and Marcus are among the officials there to see him off. Strangely, significant criminal activity, including murder, increases after he sails, and the duo spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out who has taken his place. In the meantime, Marcus has been ordered to find out who among the various cohorts, including Petra's, are corrupt, which puts him on a collision course with Petra, Helena is definitely pregnant, a deaf infant is found in the trash, Falco's landlord and washerwoman have planned a ludicrous marriage.

There were too many Roman names for me to keep track of show more on audio - maybe it reads better in print. show less

I know I have read a lot of these this year, but my local library has them all and I am, ever-so-slightly, addicted. Number 7 in the Falco series returns to Rome's criminal underbelly which, in my view, is where Davis's best work occurs. I think this is because I am so much more familiar with Rome, its geography and its customs than when the stories move out into the empire. When Balibinus Pius, who is a bit like The Godfather, is sentenced to death, he takes advantage of the time honoured Roman tradition in capital cases, 'time to depart', and hops on a boat into exile. The usual Falco disasters strike from precisely that point onwards.

Hustling and bustling of Rome comes alive in these novels. All of the societal “laws” of marriage and the implications therein, not to mention being thought of as one of the ‘unclean’ and yet working for the emperor himself, dealing with other familial issues – all while trying to solve a mystery or two! Marcus Didius Falco is a great character and Ms Davis surrounds him with fabulous personalities and situations.

Marcus and Helena are back in Rome, and immediately pulled into a mess. Marcus's large and unruly family is up to all kinds of no good, and Marcus is the one appointed to fix them all. In addition, his downstairs neighbor is marrying his landlord, and he gets talked into reading the auspices. And, someone is up to no good in the criminal underworld.

In short, another ordinary day for our hero! This isn't one of my favorite volumes, largely because too many disparate threads came together too neatly. However, it's always nice to see Helena take on a problem of her own. Her family gets a look-in, and this is our first meeting with her "respectable" brother. Plus, she's pregnant. (Is Marcus happy? He can't decide.)