See Delphi and Die

Book Cover, Scandal takes a holidayThrough his brother-in-law Aulus, Falco hears details of two young Roman women who have died in Greece while seeing the sights of the ancient world. Falco and his wife, Helena, travel to Greece to meet up with the tour party which included one of the women, seeking clues to her murder, passing through Olympia, Corinth, Delphi and the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadeia before finally arriving at Athens.

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Scandal Takes a Holiday

Book Cover, Scandal takes a holidayMarcus Didius Falco and Helena Justina travel to Ostia Antica, ostensibly on holiday. However, Falco is forced to confess to Petronius – present there on secondment – that he is in fact investigating the disappearance of Infamia, the pen name of the scribe who writes the gossip column for the Daily Gazette. He is at first believed to be merely a drunken truant, however investigations uncover some murky secrets.

All Rome reads this and eagerly awaits its publication. People love defamation.

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The Accusers

Book Cover, The AccusersFresh from his trip to Britannia, Marcus Didius Falco needs to re-establish himself back in Rome. A minor role in the trial of a senator entangles him in the machinations of two lawyers: Silus Italicus and Paccius Africanus, both ex-consuls with notorious reputations.

Rome, Autumn AD 75. Falco reflects on informers in general:

I had been an informer for over a decade when I finally learned what the job entailed.

There were no surprises. I knew how society viewed us: lowborn hangers-on, upstarts too impatient for honest careers, or corrupt nobles. The lowest grade was proudly occupied by me, Marcus Didius Falco, son of the utterly plebeian rogue Didius Favonius, heir to nothing and possessing only nobodies for ancestors. My most famous colleagues worked in the Senate and were themselves senators. In popular thought we were all parasites, bent on destroying respectable men.

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The Jupiter Myth

Book Cover, The Jupiter Myth

Londinium, Britannia in August AD 75. Falco reflects on his role in the greater scheme of things:

Hilaris was the important one here. He was the procurator of finance in Britain. To put it in perspective, I was a procurator myself but my role—which involved theoretical oversight of the Sacred Geese of Juno—was one of a hundred thousand meaningless honours handed out by the Emperor when he owed someone a favour and was too mean to pay in cash. Vespasian reckoned my services had cost enough, so he settled up remaining debts with a joke. That was me: Marcus Didius Falco, The Imperial Clown.

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A Body in the Bath House

Book Cover, A Body in the Bath HouseRome. Novomagius, Britannia, AD75. Falco (the spy who came in from the cold) is in cold, cold, cold Old Britannia, with memories to boot. It was here that he first met Helena Justina.

Falco arrives at Fishbourne and starts by investigating corrupt practices. However events quickly take a turn for the worse when the Chief Architect is found murdered in the bath-house of the British King. Falco takes over the project and investigates the killings.

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Ode to a Banker

Book Cover, Ode to a Banker

Rome. July – August AD 74. Falco is to give a poetry recital with Rutilus Gallicus, and Caesar Domitain is expected. Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and vanity publisher, introduces the event and is found dead the next day. With Rubellus absent, and the vigiles busy, Petro hires Faco to resolve the murder.

Families and backgrounds, past history and present day relationships inform many parts of this narrative, both in Falco’s family and Chrysippus’s family; Chrysippus had divorced and remarried. His first wife still operated their bank with a freedman, one Lucrio.

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Time to Depart

Book Cover, Time to Depart

Two weeks in October, AD72 …

Falco has just returned from Palmyra; Petro is expelling Balbinus Pius (a master criminal) from Rome. Falco tags along at Petro’s request to witness the expulsion. Afterwards, Petro will aid Falco in transporting Geminus’s glass shipment to the Emporium, the landing place sea freight.

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Last Act in Palmyra

Book Cover, Last Act in Palmyra

AD72, and Anacrites has ducked a fact-gathering mission for Vespasian, and sends Falco … whom he promptly betrays to a camel driver (Falco’s pseudonym for a nabataean chief minister) before he departs. Ah, this enmity between Anacrites and Falco. Will it ever end?

The scene is Petra, Nabataea, an independent kingdom and trade centre which somewhat liberally taxes goods en route and so attractive to Roma as a trading partner and future annexure to the Empire. Falco and Helena Justina are on a fact gathering mission for Vespasian. Falco has other reasons – he is on the lookout for a missing water organist, one Sophrona. He’ll be paid if he finds his quarry.

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Poseidon’s Gold

Book Cover, Poseidon's Gold

March-April, AD72, our man Falco is back in Rome, complete from his mission for the Emperor Vespasian in Germania. It is evening in Rome, cold and wet, and the sixth-floor flat on the Aventine has been broken into and occupied by squatters. Pigeons have taken advantage of the hole in the roofing, and of course, the rain is dripping through … Falco, Helena Justina and the six year old ward, Augustinilla, cannot bed down for the night. Off to Ma’s where Falco finds the centurion Censorinus (of his late brother’s Legion) in residence, awaiting his arrival. Censorinus is given the order of the boot into the pouring rain; Falco suggests he may obtain lodging at Flora’s, the local caupona, an inn where wine and ready dressed provisions are sold. There might be rooms available upstairs, suggests Falco.

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The Iron Hand of Mars

Book Cover, The Iron Hand of Mars

In Germania

Roman history in Europe provides the setting for Falco and his tasks in this novel. Germany is three: Germania Superior, Germania Libera, and Germania Inferior. During this era of the novels, Rome has provinces, governors, legions and forts dotted all over what we now call Europe. But it was not without clashing of steel, conflict, battles and rebellions.

This novel focuses on events in the region of Germania Superior and Germania Libera, with the Rhine River being somewhat a line of demarcation between civilisation and barbarity. The swathe of territory traversed scopes from Arles to Vienna, Lugdunum (Lyon) to Argentoratum (Strasbourg), and on up via Morguntiacum (Mainz), Castrum ad Confluentes (Koblenz), Bonna (Bonn), Agrippinensium (Cologne), Novaesium (Neuss), and to Vitera, (Xanten), an unusually named town which still holds this name today, along with an archaeological park full of restored Roman Artefacts.

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One Virgin Too Many

Book Cover, One Virgin Too Many

Much of this book has been given over to descriptions of varia priesthoods, Deified Emperors, and the rites of the Arval Brothers and Vestal Virgins. What was their purpose and function within the state? Why have they been included as illustrations of the life of the state on the Palatine with Vespasian taking direct intervention, as described by Rutilius Gallicus?

AD 74, late May. Falco has just arrived home from Lepcis Magna in Tripoli with dire news to deliver to his sister. Vespasian and his Great Census interrupt. Next day, Falco crosses his bridge of the unknown and delivers the news. A little 6 year old girl, strong candidate for election as a Vestal Virgin, approaches Falco with her suspicions that someone is trying to kill her. Falco (recently raised to equestrian status by Vespasian, and appointed Procurator of the Sacred Geese and Poultry) has had enough for one day. He declines to take the girl as a client and sends her home. An act which was to cause him quite some work.

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Two for the Lions

Book Cover, Two for the Lions

This novel opens with the startling perspective that Falco and partner are auditing businessmen whose trade is slaughter. Of wild animals and humans. Their stock in trade was measured as units of mass murder. We’ll take a look at this and its impact on the humanity of Falco and Helena Justina.

Meanwhile, Emperor Vespasian is confused that there are no monies in the imperial treasury. (An unfavourable balance of trade was the culprit.) In order to beef up the imperial statutory reserves Vespasian engages Falco and Partner to set matters aright with the Great Census of Rome.

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Three Hands in the Fountain

Book Cover, Three Hands in the FountainAugust-October,AD73, Falco is back in Rome after his expedition to Baetica, and is having a drink with Petro, his long time friend from his days in the Second Augusta. Petro is suffering durance vile, away from his wife, Arria Silvia. Petro is going into partnership with Falco; Ma (Junilla Tacita) has other ideas and wants her convalescent Anacrites to team up with her son!

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A Dying Light in Corduba

Book Cover, Last Act in Palmyra

Falco is inveigled by the Chief Clerk Laeta into attending a dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers in Baetica. This is just a front for select persons to eat well, drink well, rub shoulders with the top echelon and watch titillating dancers. Falco is aware that Laeta is setting him up. However, there is an unexpected problem with violence towards some attending. One is killed, the other, well, he is close to Hades, and as Falco puts it, lying on his pallet with his fare for Charon in his hand. (Charon took the newly dead across the river Acheron or Styx if they could pay for the ride.)

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