Lindsey Davis is the internationally bestselling author who “makes Rome live” (Washington Post Book World). Funny, astute, and hard-boiled, her series 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 hath no fury like an author scorned, and when Chrysippus turns up murdered—in the library, no less—it’s poetic justice. Appointed the official investigator, Falco’s soon up to his stylus in outraged writers and shifty bankers. Now it’s time to employ his real talents: deducing the killer from an assembly of suspects.
This classic whodunit is Lindsey Davis’ most satisfying mystery yet.
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“A good mystery and, as such, the reader doesn’t suspect the perpetrator until all is gradually revealed, and then everything makes perfect sense…In the end, we leave Marcus Didius Falco with a wine flagon and a good scroll to read. Given the society in which he lives, he probably won’t be idle for long, much to his fans’ delight.”
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Publishers Weekly