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Saturnalia (Falco 18)

Author: Lindsey Davis
Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

5 reviews
Sales Rank: 4527

Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1

ISBN: 0099493837
EAN: 9780099493839
ASIN: 0099493837

Publication Date: February 7, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Purchased from Amazon. Realised I had already read it. So the book is unread.

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Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars

Not one of her best June 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is an entertaining enough read in the traditional Davis style: improbable amounts of action interspersed with huge quantities of background detail, this time mainly concerning the eponymous festival.

The problem is that the denoument of the main mystery isn't terribly satisfactory and the serial killer on the loose sub-plot never takes off enough for anyone to care who dunnit.

5 out of 5 stars

Falco 18, and an old acquaintance is on the run in Rome May 20, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is the eighteenth and currently (May 2008) most recent in a series of excellent detective stories set in Vespasian's Roman Empire and featuring the informer Marcus Didius Falco. Informers in ancient Rome were something between a private detective and a government spy.

It is AD76, at the start of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Falco finds out that a figure from his past - and more particularly, his brother-in-law's past - has been brought to Rome to play the supporting role in a Roman Triumph followed by the starring role in an execution ...

In the fourth book in the series, "The Iron Hand of Mars" set five years before, Marcus Didius Falco had been sent on an undercover mission to the wilds of Germany, an area which the Roman Empire had definately not managed to pacify. The mission led Falco, with his then girlfriend Helena Justina (now his wife), and her brother Camillus, to the beautiful but sinister tribal prophetess Veleda, and Camillus promptly fell in love with her.

Back in 71AD, Falco had brokered a deal with Veleda: she would stop inciting the German tribes to attack the Roman Empire, the Empire would leave her alone. Five years on , Veleda may or may not have kept her side of the bargain, but an ambitious and incompetent governor decides to boost his prestige by tricking Veleda into coming to Rome as a hostage, with the intention of presenting her capture as a great victory and having her executed. The governor then goes off on holiday without making adequate arrangements for Veleda's security, and - surprise surprise - on hearing what is actually planned for her, she escapes.

As one of the few Roman officials who has actually met the lady, Falco is charged with recapturing her and given the doubtful assistance of a dozen legionaries who escorted her from Germany to Rome - who are billeted on Falco's home with the instruction "you will have to pretend that they are your relatives." And all this during a festival dedicated to mischief ...

I tried this series because I had enjoyed Ellis Peter's "Brother Cadfael" detective stories. Where Cadfael is excellent, Falco is brilliant. Ellis Peters herself (or to use her real name, Edith Pargeter) said of the early books of the series, 'Lindsey Davis continues her exploration of Vespasian's Rome and Marcus Didius Falco's Italy with the same wit and gusto that made "The Silver Pigs" such a dazzling debut and her rueful, self-deprecating hero so irresistibly likeable.'

Funny, exciting, and based on a painstaking effort to re-create the world of the early Roman empire between 70 and 76 AD.

If you have met and enjoyed either the Cadfael or Thraxas series, this is even better.

It isn't absolutely essential to read these stories in sequence, as the mysteries Falco is trying to solve are all self-contained stories and each can stand on its own. Having said that, there is some ongoing development of characters and relationships and I think reading them in the right order does improve the experience.

The full Falco series, in chronological order, consists at the moment of:

The Silver Pigs
Shadows in Bronze
Venus in Copper
The Iron Hand of Mars
Poseidon's Gold
Last Act in Palmyra
Time to Depart
A Dying Light in Corduba
Three Hands in the Fountain
Two for the Lions
One Virgin Too Many
Ode to a Banker
A Body in the Bath house
The Jupiter Myth
The Accusers
Scandal taks a Holiday
See Delphi and Die
Saturnalia

I have read and can warmly recommend all of these.

5 out of 5 stars

Great Roman Romp May 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

It is many years since I have read a novel about Marcus Didius Falco, Roman PI. This is not due to any lack on the author's part, just that I've been wandering in other pastures and the cliched statement 'So many books, so little time' is totally true. So, I've read the first 3 Falco books and no more until now. In the interim, Falco has got married and become a family man and slightly more respectable than he was of yore. Good news is that the book can be read as a stand alone and you needn't have read anything about Falco before in order to get straight down to business.
It's interesting to see that the author's wonderful talent remains consistent. Some writers start with a bang and then go downhill, others take time to work up to their masterpiece, but Lindsey Davis remains on an excellent and consistent level. This particular outing rather reminded me in places of Terry Pratchett, especially the scene with the 'witches' and then out on the street with the 'vegetables'. Those scenes could have come straight out of Discworld.
Readers looking for an excellent, fast paced and funny romp set in the Roman world can't go wrong with this one. A delight.
Oh, and the author's note is wonderful! Thank you Lindsey Davis for a real belly laugh.

5 out of 5 stars

Hail Falco!! April 14, 2008
9 out of 14 found this review helpful

Lindsey Davis was born in Birmingham but now lives in Greenwich. After an English degree at Oxford she joined the Civil Service but now writes full time. In 1999 she received the Sherlock Award for Best Comic Detective for her creation, Marcus Didius Falco. Lindsey Davis's books are eagerly awaited by the large following of readers she has gathered together with her Falco books and I am not ashamed to say that I am one of them. There are several authors that write similar books and I enjoy reading their books too, but the Falco books just seem to have that little bit extra that I cannot put my finger on.

Saturnalia, as anyone with an interest in Roman history will know, is a holiday. The daytime is just something that comes before the night and the wild parties that the city of Rome has always been famous for. It is the ideal time for a returning Roman general to be given his `Triumph' something very rarely accorded to a victorious leader of Rome's mighty legions. The general has a famous enemy of Rome as his captive and wishes to use her as a ritual sacrifice at his Triumph. But things go horribly wrong, she acquires a mysterious illness and then a young man is brutal murdered and she escapes from house arrest.

Falco has to pit his wits against his old rival and enemy Anacrites a man Falco's mother once admired, but she was in a majority of one. Can either of them find the fugitive before she becomes an embarrassment to the government. With all the mayhem that comes with the holiday season the search seems impossible and only Falco seems to notice that death is stalking the streets of the city.

5 out of 5 stars

Falco Rocks March 18, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

This the 18th Falco Novel by Lindsay Davis is as good as, if not better, than all the others. Davis writing continues to enthral and entertain, and Falco's antics have you wondering one minute and laughing out loud the next. The storyline revolves around one missing German woman and one brother/brother-in-law who has been kidnapped. It is the Saturnalia holiday and the whole of Rome has gone mad. getting up to antics that would get them arrested any other time of the year. This leads to a very entertaining story, and I would recommend anyone to read it.