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1) Nemesis
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In the high summer of 77 AD, Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. A middle-aged couple who supplied statues to his father have disappeared. They had an old feud with a bunch of notorious freedmen, the Claudii, who terrorize the neighborhood. When a mutilated corpse turns up, Falco and his friend Petronius investigate. But just as they are making progress, the Chief Spy, Anacrites, snatches the case away. He makes false...
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Falco volume 12
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The funny, astute, and hard-boiled detective Marcus Didius Falco now ventures into a new arena, the publishing world of AD 74, to prove that ars longa, vita brevis...and murder is timeless. Can a tough detective possess the soul of a poet? After a public reading brings him rousing applause, Falco receives an offer to have his work published. But his ego takes a beating when the banker Chrysippus demands payment for putting the verse on papyrus. Hell...
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Falco volume 6
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Last Act in Palmyra is the sixth book in the bestselling Falco series by Lindsey Davis. The spirit of adventure calls Marcus Didius Falco on a new spying mission for Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He picks up extra fees from his old friend Thalia the snake dancer as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With the chief spy Anacrites paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong. A dangerous brush with the brother, the sinister...
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Falco volume 7
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Balbinus Pius, the most notorious gangster in Emperor Vespasian's Rome, has been convicted of a capital crime at last. A quirk of Roman law, however, allows citizens condemned to death "time to depart" and find exile outside the empire. Now, as every hoodlum in Rome scrambles to take over Balbinus' operations, private eye Marcus Didius Falco has to deal with an unprecedented wave of crime-and the sneaking suspicion that Balbinus' exile may not really...
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Falco volume 5
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After six months in wild Germania, imperial gumshoe Marcus Didius Falco is back in Rome sweet Rome - but his apartment has been ransacked. And although he desperately needs 400,000 sesterces in order to marry his aristocratic love, Helena, his only client is his mother, who insists that he find out whether the scandalous claims against his dead brother, Festus, are true. Then the chief tarnisher of Festus' good name is murdered, and Marcus becomes...
6) The accusers
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Falco volume 15
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This novel in the acclaimed Marcus Didius Falco series finds the first-century detective confronting Roman legal forces that may just destroy him-and his family. Fresh from a trip to far-flung Londinium in Britain, Falco needs to re-establish his presence in Rome. A minor role in the trial of a senator entangles him in the machinations of two powerful lawyers. The senator is convicted but then dies, apparently by suicide. It may have been a legal...
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Falco volume 2
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It's the first century AD, and Marcus Didius Falco, ancient Rome's favorite son and sometimes 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...
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Falco volume 8
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In this eighth mystery featuring hard-boiled Roman PI Marcus Didius Falco, Davis creates a chiaroscuro world of evil plots and dark humor, as olive oil whets a villain's appetite for power and his taste for murder. Surprisingly, nobody is poisoned at the Society of Olive Oil Producers banquet-the attempted murder of Rome's chief spy occurs immediately afterward. Suspicion falls, quick as the Italian night, on the dinner's sinuous dancer, a lady who...
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Falco volume 10
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This tenth novel featuring Marcus Didius Falco puts the tough private eye in the lions' den to investigate an extraordinary case of murder. Nothing's certain except death and taxes. Catching tax evaders for the Emperor Vespasian looks like a plum position for Marcus Didius Falco, who has teamed up with his old boss, Anacrites, the crotchety chief spy of Rome. Soon, however, Falco is bogged down in bureaucracy, stuck at his stylus, and longing for...
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Falco volume 9
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Marcus Didius Falco and his laddish friend Petronius find their local fountain has been blocked-by a gruesomely severed human hand. Soon other body parts are being found in the aqueducts and sewers.Public panic overcomes official indifference, and the Aventine partners are commissioned to investigate. Women are being abducted during festivals, and the next Games are only days away. As the heat rises in the Circus Maximus, they face a race against...
11) Saturnalia
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Falco volume 18
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It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short, the nights are for wild parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome and brings her home to adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. The logistics go wrong: she acquires a mystery illness-then a young man is horrendously murdered and she escapes from house arrest.
Marcus Didius Falco is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites, in a race to find the fugitive before...
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Falco volume 4
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When Germanic troops in the service of the empire begin to rebel, and a Roman general disappears, Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can trust: Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer whose rates are low enough that even the stingy Vespasian is willing to pay them. To Falco, an undercover tour of Germany is an assignment from Hades. On a journey that only a stoic could survive, Falco meets with disarray, torture, and murder. His one hope: in...
13) The Jupiter myth
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Falco volume 14
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Davis' 14th novel in the Marcus Didius Falco series is a noir tale of gangsters, gladiators, and love. For Falco, a relaxed visit to Helena's relatives in Britain turns serious at the scene of a downtown murder.
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Falco volume 17
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It's AD 76 during the reign of Vespasian, and Marcus Didius Falco has achieved much in his life. He's joined the equestrian rank, allowing him to marry Helena Justina, the woman he's been keeping time with the past few years. But that doesn't mean all is quiet for Falco, Helena, and their two young daughters. By trade he is an informer, a man who looks into sticky situations, and he's been hired to pry his errant brother-in-law away from a murder...
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Falco volume 3
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Rome, AD 71. Marcus Didius Falco is desperate to leave the notorious Lautumiae prison-though being bailed out by his mother is a slight indignity. Things go from bad to worse when a group of nouveau riche ex-slaves hire him to outwit a fortune-hunting redhead, whose husbands have a habit of dying accidentally, leaving him up against a female contortionist, her extra-friendly snake, indigestible cakes, and rent racketeers. All the while Falco tries...
16) Alexandria
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Falco volume 19
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In A.D. 77, Marcus Didius Falco, agent to the Emperor Vespasian, investigates the mysterious death of the head librarian of the world-famous library of Alexandria, bringing him into immediate conflict with the darker side of academic life.
17) The silver pigs
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Falco volume 1
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The Silver Pigs is the classic novel that introduced readers around the world to Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer with a knack for trouble, a tendency for bad luck, and a frequently inconvenient drive for justice.
When Marcus Didius Falco encounters the young and very pretty Sosia Camillina in the Forum, he senses immediately that there is something amiss. When she confesses that she is fleeing for her life, Falco offers to
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11th installment of Marcus Didius Falco, the cynical, hard-boiled investigator from the rough end of Rome, is back from a difficult mission in North Africa. As a result of his hard work, Emperor Vespasian awards Falco with the title of Procurator of Poultry for the Senate and People of Rome, or keeper of the city's sacred geese. Not much of a salary, of course, but the title does give him a better standing with his in-laws. Now, all Falco wants is...
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Falco volume 13
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The thirteenth novel featuring sleuth Marcus Didius Falco explores the fervor of home improvement that's sweeping the Roman Empire and Falco's own household, specifically the bathhouse-where a body turns up. Some things never change. With his new villa, Falco also gets a timeless headache: building contractors. After the departure of two shady plasterers, a rank odor in the bathhouse soon leads to the discovery of a corpse under the mosaic floor....
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Falco volume 16
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Ancient Rome's organized crime syndicates have never been more dangerous or more cunning than in this latest adventure featuring first-century sleuth Marcus Didius Falco. In the Italian town of Ostia outside Rome, Falco appears to be enjoying a relaxing holiday. But when Helena arrives carrying a batch of past issues of the Daily Gazette with the intention of catching up on the latest scandal, Falco is forced to admit his real reason for being there....