Description: 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 her presence angers the public and makes the government look stupid. Falco has other priorities, for Helena's brother Justinus has also vanished, perhaps fatefully involved once more with the great lost love of his youth.Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule, the search seems impossible--and only Falco appears to notice that some dark agency is bringing death to the city streets.
Brief description:
Lindsey Davis is an English novelist best known for her award-winning historical crime stories set in ancient Rome and its empire. The acclaimed Marcus Didius Falco series earned her the Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, and Alexandria made the New York Times bestsellers list. She is also the author of the acclaimed historical novels The Course of Honor and Rebels and Traitors. Her novels have won numerous awards, including the 2011 Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association for lifetime achievement. Born and raised in Birmingham, England, she read English at Oxford and worked for the civil service for thirteen years before becoming a writer.