This is the 11th book in a historical fiction detective series, which consists of “hard boiled” crime fiction set in Ancient Rome… which makes it very amusing on a meta level, as well as in fact, since the author adds a great deal of humor to the story.

The series began in AD 71. It is now AD 74, and 33-year-old Marcus Didius Falco has supposedly retired from being a private informer (i.e., private investigator). He is now employed as “Procurator of Poultry for the Senate and People of Rome,” a title invented for him by Emperor Vespasian. He got the job (much to his dismay) after preventing a fatal accident to the Sacred Geese on the Capitol. [Yes this was a real thing! Geese had once saved Rome from marauding Gauls by honking when the guard dogs failed to bark. See for example this online history.] As a bonus of sorts, Falco is also in charge of the Sacred Chickens, used for auguries to predict the outcome of military maneuvers.

This novel opens with a bang:

“I had just come home after telling my favourite sister that her husband had been eaten by a lion. I was in no mood for greeting a new client.”

And yet, he does find a new client waiting for him at his home with his wife Helena Justina and his one-year-old daughter Julia. She is a little six-year-old girl named Gaia Laelia, and she claims her family is trying to kill her.

Gaia Laelia’s family holds important religious offices. Her grandfather is the Chief Priest of Jupiter, or as Falco calls him “top greaser to the top god int he great Olympian Triad.”) and Gaia herself is slated by her family to compete for the office of Vestal Virgin. [These were the virgin holy priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. Their primary task was to maintain the sacred fire of Vesta. The Vestal duty brought great honor and afforded greater privileges to women who served in that role. They were the only female priests within the Roman religious system.]

But then Gaia disappears.

Meanwhile, Helena’s brother Aelianus is trying to get into the Arval Brethren - a body of priests in ancient Rome who offered annual sacrifices to guarantee good harvests, and presided over festivals and religious holidays. But at one of their ceremonies, he literally stumbles upon a dead body of the one of the Brethren.

Falco is now involved (albeit reluctantly) in two investigations, and tackles them with his usual dogged perseverance and snarky commentary.

Evaluation: The author seems to be channeling Raymond Chandler and his fictional character Philip Marlowe, who is a wisecracking, hard-drinking private eye with a philosophical bent and a penchant for poetry. With Davis’s addition of endearing characters and the educational setting in Ancient Rome, she has created a winning combination. I enjoy Falco’s self-deprecating humor. ( )

I am now at the eleventh book in the re-reading of the series. Helena and Falco are back in Rome and Falco has been promoted to Equestrian status and is now the Procurator of the Sacred Poultry.
This book concerns murder (of course) and vestal virgins.
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Once more we delve into the murkier side of 1st-century Rome with Marcus Didius Falco. The joy of reading Lindsey Davis's historical whodunnits is that she uses her extensive and deep research into the world of Vespasian's Rome – the period we know most about everyday Roman life because it's the decade before Vesuvius left a valuable snapshot – to bring the Roman Empire and its traditions alive. In a way that leaves a lesser role for the actual crime and its investigation, but that shouldn't be taken to mean this isn't a real nail-biter to the very end.

Falco and his immediate family Helena Justina, baby Julia Junilla and disreputable dog Nux are back in Rome, summoned by Vespasian to receive imperial thanks for his work on the Census (tax enforcement in other words). Falco is raised by a grateful Empire to the Equestrian rank he has long sought, though the fiscally-prudent emperor has declined to furnish the entry fee, simply awarding him a priestly sinecure as Procurator of the Sacred Geese and Sacrificial Chickens. It sounds like a good joke but Vespasian is no fool, and it leads Falco into the world of religious cults: the Vestal Virgins, the Arval Brotherhood and a strangely dysfunctional and secretive priestly family, in search of a missing six-year-old and the deranged killer of an Arval Brother. Naturally, everything is intertwined. But once the killer has been identified, will the little girl be found safely?

One of the very best of the series so far.


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Once more we delve into the murkier side of 1st-century Rome with Marcus Didius Falco. The joy of reading Lindsey Davis's historical whodunnits is that she uses her extensive and deep research into the world of Vespasian's Rome – the period we know most about everyday Roman life because it's the decade before Vesuvius left a valuable snapshot – to bring the Roman Empire and its traditions alive. In a way that leaves a lesser role for the actual crime and its investigation, but that shouldn't be taken to mean this isn't a real nail-biter to the very end.

Falco and his immediate family Helena Justina, baby Julia Junilla and disreputable dog Nux are back in Rome, summoned by Vespasian to receive imperial thanks for his work on the Census (tax enforcement in other words). Falco is raised by a grateful Empire to the Equestrian rank he has long sought, though the fiscally-prudent emperor has declined to furnish the entry fee, simply awarding him a priestly sinecure as Procurator of the Sacred Geese and Sacrificial Chickens. It sounds like a good joke but Vespasian is no fool, and it leads Falco into the world of religious cults: the Vestal Virgins, the Arval Brotherhood and a strangely dysfunctional and secretive priestly family, in search of a missing six-year-old and the deranged killer of an Arval Brother. Naturally, everything is intertwined. But once the killer has been identified, will the little girl be found safely?

One of the very best of the series so far.


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Set in AD 74 during Vespasian's reign, this cozy mystery is set in Rome. Returning from Northern Africa, Falco finds himself in charge of the royal geese, and drawn into a murder case involving the Vestal Virgins. Davies does a lot of research for her historical-fiction; and in this case the world of religious cults is brought to the fore. Though you could read this as a stand-alone; it's really a true serial novel - meaning that it flows from the previous novel; and the expectation is that the next novel, 'Ode to a Banker', will pick up where this one left off. ( )