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Number 2 in the excellent "Falco" series | Shadows in Bronze: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries) | Lindsey Davis

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	• Shadows in Bronze: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries) Lindsey Davis St. Martin's Minotaur, 2007 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Reading it was a Rare Pleasure

This is the second novel in the mystery series featuring Marcus Didius Falco, an informer and sleuth. A series of books that have become hugely popular, so much so that the author is now at the forefront of historical mystery writers. It was probably a stroke of genius on her part to have novels that are extremely well researched and contain all the elements that would be and should be found in Rome in AD70, but to have a lead character who has the vocabulary of a present day New York cop.

In this novel the hero Marcus Didius Falco has returned from the remote island of Britannia, a god forsaken place whose people are morose and surly and the weather, well the weather is best left to its own devices. Marcus has lost his heart to senator's daughter Helena but is not sure that the passion he feels is reciprocated. Why is that women he is not interested in, fall over themselves to get to him, but the one that he has lost his heart to, treats him with a cool disdain?

He has not long returned to the welcoming arms of Rome before a series of fatal accidents and things that go bump in the night convince Falco and the Emperor that there are traitors still conspiring and they must be brought to book. Falco is not happy, it seems he must leave his beloved Rome yet again, but the conspirators are serious about their plans and will not let anyone stand in their way. Will Falco ever return . . .

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Burning conspiracy relations.

Covered up executions, arson, and people from Helena's past all pay a role in this Falco story. Back in Rome, he has some running around to do with his friend Petronius to discover what is going on, under cover of a holiday journey.

His paths cross with Helena multiple times in the course of these investigations, ensuring this book is just about as good as the previous novel.

Number 2 in the excellent "Falco" series

This is the second of a series of 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.

I tried this historical detective 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 71 AD.

Having foiled an attempted coup with the help of senator's daughter Helena Justina in the first book, Falco is clearing up some of the mess, when it becomes clear that another plot may be afoot. Emperor Vaspasian sends Falco to find out what's going on ...

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.

Lindsey Davis has also written a historical novel set in the same timeframe called "The Course of Honor" which is about the love affair between Vespasian and his mistress Caenis. The author has taken the two sentences from Suetonius which are all we know of Caenis, and from them she has conjured the vital image of a woman beautiful in both form and personality and a charming love story.

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Incredible Series

Lindsey Davis has captured the feel of ancient Rome and surrounding countries/seas. She brings Rome and it's inhabitants alive, so much so that you can almost feel what she writes! I recommend the entire series of Marcus Didius Falco and his friends to anyone who likes history and who would like to feel what it was like in ancient Rome.

shadows in bronze

Lindsey Davis, as usual, is an excellent author and did a great deal of research before writing this book. Enjoyed it.

It?s the first century A.D. and Marcus Didius Falco, Ancient Rome?s favorite son and sometime palace spy, has just been dealt a lousy blow from the gods: The beautiful, high-born Helena Justina has left him in the dust. So when the Emperor Vespasian calls upon him to investigate an act of treason, Falco is more than ready for a distraction. Disguised as an idle vacationer in the company of his best friend Petronius, Falco travels from the Isle of Capreae to Neapolis and all the way to the great city of Pompeii?where a whole new series of Herculean events?involving yet another conspiracy, and a fateful meeting with his beloved Helena?are about to erupt?.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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