SILVER PIGS

One fine day, AD 70, comely blonde Sosia Camillina quite literally runs into Marcus Didius Falco on the steps of the Forum. It seems Sosia is on the lam from a couple of street toughs and after a quick and dirty rescue, PI Falco wants to know why. Falco finds out that Sosia, the niece of a highly placed senator, holds the key to a stockpile of silver pigs - ingots intended for no good use. Hoping for future favors from Sosia's powerful uncle, Falco embarks on an intricate case of smuggling, murder, and treason that reaches into the palace itself. And if he does not tread lightly, the treacherous puzzle of the silver pigs could buy him a one-way ticket to his own funeral pyre....

Friends, Romans, countrymen, Marcus Didius Falco, Ancient Rome's favorite son and sometime palace spy, returns to aid the Emperor Vespasian himself. This time citizen Falco has been charged with finding the culprits who are plotting Vespasian's imperial demise. In the meanwhile, Falco also has some unfinished business with one citizen Helena Justina, a highborn beauty he has given his heart to. Although at these wages, his heart is all he can afford to render unto her - which causes its own problems. From the Isle of Cahomeae to Neapolis to high-flying antics at the Circus Maximus, Falco does Vespasian proud, seeking out the schemers who would topple his regime, scouring the gin joints and flesh pots of the Roman Empire for a lead on one particularly devious nobleman....

VENUS IN COPPER

The way Marcus Didius Falco sees it, no one can claim the monopoly on sleaze and corruption in the Eternal City because the competition is so keen. Most recently a Palace spy for the Emperor Vespasian, Falco is now in private service, trying to homevent a murder before it happens. Severina Zotica, a savvy, flame-haired temptress, has had the misfortune of marrying men who died rather quickly and under mysterious circumstances. She has met her match in Falco. He can't be seduced, lied to, or bribed off a case as interesting as this one. But when two people are violently killed under his watch, Falco gets hot under the toga. And just when it looks as if a serious pummeling by trained killers will send him home for good, Falco, the noblest of Romans, has another go at the Gordian knot that will take all his skill to untangle....

When wild Germanic troops in the service of the Empire begin to rebel, and a Roman general disappears, the worried Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can trust: Marcus Didius Falco. To Falco, an undercover tour of Germania 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 the northern forest lives a Druid priestess who perhaps can be persuaded to cease her anti-Rome activities and work for peace. One the other hand, Falco may just be more grist for the mill....

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 need 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's good name is murdered, and Marcus becomes the prime suspect. Someone is definitely fiddling with the scales of justice. The more Marcus hunts for the thread that will lead him out of this doom-laden labyrinth of misery and mystery, the less his life is worth. Except, as seems likely, as a meal for the Emperor's hungry lions...

There are times when a shamus has to get out of town, even in AD 72. With money and woman troubles mounting in Rome, Falco is heading east to search for a missing Roman Circus performer and to carry out a secret spy mission for the Emperor. The woman causing Falco's heart trouble, Helena Justina, a senator's daughter, is coming along for the trip. She can't live openly with the plebian Falco, who is below her in rank. But she can't live without him, either. Ergo, they're together in desolate, dangerous Syria to find a corpse, lose a lady, and join a traveling theater troupe where the last act is, of course, murder.

Roman law allows every citizen condemned to death "time to depart" - in other words, time to skip town. No matter how hard Marcus Didius Falco worked to convict Balbinus Pius, the dirtiest underworld organizer in the empire, the man has gotten away scot-free. Now as every crook in Rome is scrambling to take over Balbinus' scams, Falco has to deal with heists in the Emporium, murders in the vias, shady deals at the Bower of Venus - not to mention his own forbidden romance with a senator's daughter. Meanwhile, Balbinus is said to be on his way home. And if he is, Falco's life won't be worth a red centum...

Nobody is poisoned at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers; the assassination attempt comes afterward. Falco ought to know, he is at the banquet along with some unexpected guests, including Anacrites the Chief Spy and Falco's own hostile brat of a brother-in-law, Aelianus. Right from the first, Falco eyes the entertainment - which includes a sinuous Spanish dancer scantily dressed as Diana the Huntress - with suspicion. When Anacrites is gravely wounded later that night, the only clue is a golden arrow last seen in the bow of the party dancer, a lady now on her way to Corduba, Spain. As it happens, Falco is facing fatherhood for the first time and has promised his wife to stay by her side. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, Falco's only solution is to take the patrician Helena with him, a decision that may prove to be a colossal mistake. For as Helena and Falco track the exotic dancer through the Iberian Peninsula, they discover a slippery scandal in the olive trade, a chilling trail of murders, and a killer without a conscience...a remorseless and cunning villain much too dangerous for a man distracted by a very homegnant wife.

Marcus Didius Falco learns that body parts have been found in the water systems of Rome for years, and the killer strikes during public festivals. With the Roman Games being imminent, Falco begins to search 200 miles of aqueduct and the crowded streets to catch the sadist before they strike again.

Lumbered with working alongside reptilian Chief Spy Anacrites, Falco has hit upon the perfect plan - offering his services to Vespasian and Titus in conducting the 'great Census' of AD 73 as a tax collector with draconian powers. If he does well, his fee will finally allow him to join the middle ranks and wed long-suffering companion Helena Justina. Meanwhile, Falco is needed to trace a relative who has eloped, and has a crazy plan for finding an extinct herb. Distracted by the apparent murder of a star man-eating lion, Falco uncovers a bitter rivalry between the gladiators' trainers. When a star gladiator also ends up dead Falco is forced to investigate. The trail leads to North Africa, with Helena Justina and little Julia in tow…

Another adventure featuring Falco, who has been made an equestrian as reward for his work on the Census. However, his new duties as Procurator of the Sacred Poultry of the Senate and People of Rome bring their own complications.

The twelfth novel featuring Roman sleuth Marcus Didius Falco explores the Roman spheres of poetics and banking. When a rich banker from an Athenian family becomes patron to a group of struggling writers and is then murdered, Falco is sent to investigate.

AD75. As a passion for home improvement sweeps through the Roman Empire, Marcus Didius Falco struggles to deal with Gloccus and Cotta, a pair of terrible bath house contractors whose slow progress and bad workmanship have been causing him misery for months. They finally finish their contract, but leave Falco and his father with a ghastly smell from a hypocaust and some gruesome site debris... Far away in Britain, King Togidubnus of the Atrebates tribe is planning his own makeover. His huge new residence (known to us as Fishbourne Palace) will be spectacular - but the sensational refurbishment is behind time and over budget, its labour force is beset by 'accidents', corrupt practices are rife, and everyone loathes the project manager. The frugal Emperor Vespasian is paying for all this; he wants someone to investigate. Falco has a new baby, an new house, and he hates Britain. But his feud with Anacrites the Chief Spy has now reached a dangerous level, so with his own pressing reasons to leave Rome in a hurry, he accepts the task. A thousand miles from home, with only his family to support him, he starts restoring order to the chaotic building site. Then, while he searches the feuding workforce for Gloccus and Cotta, he realises that someone with murderous intentions is now after him...

Falco and his family are staying in London when Falco he is summoned to the scene of a murder. The victim, Verovolcus, was a renegade with ties to Roman crime magnates operating in London - but he was also close to King Togidubnus. So when he is discovered stuffed head first down a well, a tricky diplomatic situation develops that Falco needs to defuse. This leads Falco into the seedy underbelly of London, a world plundered by Roman gangsters out to profit from the excitement-starved population. Sex, death and gambling are the order of the day and the newly built Amphitheatre, with its flashy female gladiators, is proving particularly popular. Falco soon realises that the initially troublesome gladiators - including one from his own bachelor past - may just give him the edge he needs to solve Verovolcus' murder, as the gangsters are pursued back to the Italian town of Ostia for a final showdown.

Needing to re-establish their presence in Rome, Falco and Associates become embroiled in the legal manoeuvres of Silius Italicus and Paccius Africanus, real-life uppercrust informers who thrive on exploiting the sins of the rich. Rubirius Metellus, an average senator (corrupt, nasty, hated by his relatives and possibly incestuous) has committed suicide to avoid paying his bills. It's a neat trick if you can get away with it, but he won't because Silius wants his huge fees and Paccius is advising most of the family, including the favoured ex-daughter-in-law, while M Didius Falco is on hand to defend old-fashioned concepts like justice for the innocent. Aulus takes an interest in agnates, Quintus gains an heir, Helena distrusts the ingénue and Falco risks his future using oratorical skills we have never imagined he owns. With poisoned pills, magic practices, women in labour, old Senate scandals and an appearance from dumb judge Marponius lined up, things are tricky even before the impiety charge – and that may be the end of everything...

All those doubters who query 'Was there really a Daily Gazette?' will find the Acta Diurna carefully explained to shut them up. Falco visits Petronius and his favourite brother-in-law, Gaius Baebius, at Ostia while on a missing person hunt for a vanished scribe. Fun and frights and family pressures colour a sunny adventure beside the sea (NB we know our Hero cannot swim...) There would be pirates – had not Pompey cleared the seas of pirates, as everybody knows. Perhaps we shall learn what pirates do when they are not being pirates any more. At least, Falco assures himself, there are no dead bodies in this one. Regular readers will know what that means. A little boy comes to tell the vigiles that his mummy won't wake up, for starters. The topiarist in fear of his life. Even Gaius Baebius takes sick leave. And that's before we meet the sailors who want to play games with their gangplank, the mysterious Illyrian (who may not be Illyrian at all), the boy racer speeding in the flash chariot at rush hour, and the girl with too many romantic ideas.

A Falco omnibus featuring Venus in Copper, The Iron Hand of Mars and Poseidon's Gold.

This is the love story of the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress, Antonia Caenis. Ancient Rome's most turbulent period - reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and the Year of the Four Emperors - is encapsulated in this novel which tells sweeping story of the ascendancy of the Emperor Vespasian, the impecunious son of a provincial senator who finally peace to Rome after years of strife. The story is seen through the eyes of Caenis, a woman slave working as a secretary for Antonia, Claudius' mother. She is a small footnote in the accounts of Roman historians, but here she is beautifully realized as the woman who exerted the greatest influence on the future Emperor. As their strange and forbidden romance blossoms, Caenis finds herself involved in the discovery of Sejanus' plot against Tiberius, while Vespasian takes his first steps towards what she believes will be a glorious career. Years pass, yet they survive both homejudice and violent political events. Then Vespasian occupies a central role in the climactic struggle for power - bringing hope for Rome, but only despair for the woman who has loved him for so long.