The Albia Series

Chosen by The Times as one of the Top Ten Crime Novels Written by Women since 2000

The Ides of April

Flavia Albia, book 1

First of a new series of crime novels set in Ancient Rome and featuring Flavia Albia, the adopted daughter of much-loved Marcus Didius Falco. Based on real historical events: mysterious poisonings, in which victims died, often unaware they had been attacked. Albia is now 28 and an established female investigator. Her personal history and her British birth enable her to view Roman society and its traditions as a bemused outsider and also as a woman struggling for independence in a man’s world. The first novel takes place on the plebeian Aventine Hill, with its mix of monumental temples, muddy back…

Enemies at Home

Flavia Albia, book 2

When a newly-married couple are violently robbed and murdered in their apartment, the vigiles take the easy way out and accuse their household slaves. The slaves seek refuge in the Temple of Ceres, a more reluctant haven of liberty than tradition claims. Albia’s new friend Manlius Faustus is tasked with persuading the runaways to leave. He hires Albia to help him work out what really happened… Reader Favourite: Helena had already sized him up. Later, I was to hear her tell my father that Manlius Faustus looked like a man you could ask to take charge of your wood cart…

Deadly Election

Flavia Albia book 3

When a decaying corpse is discovered by her father’s staff as they prepare for an auction, Flavia Albia steps in to take responsibility and get the container washed hygienically. For a better view of her suspects as the bidding hots up, she takes over the gavel. I can already hear the outraged cries of hidebound traditionalists who think Roman men were men and their women stayed invisible. Albia has her own ideas of helping a family business. Meanwhile Manlius Faustus is helping an old friend stand in what passes for an election in undemocratic imperial times; he persuades Albia to…

The Graveyard of the Hesperides

Flavia Albia, book 4

Manlius Faustus decides it is time he had a proper job, which Flavia Albia can only applaud. When he goes into the family business and starts renovating a bar, it can only be a matter of time (for this is a crime novel) before bodies start turning up. Does every low dive in ancient Rome have a longtime missing barmaid? Not to mention other buried bones that are destined to hold up the aedile’s project – bones that were clearly not put there by the landlord’s dog. Helped and hindered by members of the vigiles, Albia braces herself for a…

Never Say Nero Again

The Third Nero

Albia Series, book 5

0r Never Say Nero Again It is understood that a plebian aedile, thought to be Ti Manlius Faustus, has issued a formal complaint to the editors of the Acta Diurna, about the wording of a recent notice concerning his wedding. Due to health issues, queries should be referred to his wife. In view of sensitive material contained in this publication, Our Master and God has instructed that the scrolls must be subjected to detailed scrutiny by the intelligence service. Some revelations may affect national security or be prejudicial to the safety of agents in the field. Names and other information concerning…

Pandora’s Boy

Flavia Albia book 6

Offered a job by her new husband’s ex-wife, Albia hides in a store cupboard. But the loathsome Laia has put forward an intriguing mystery, with a young girl dead amidst suggestions of magic; the family is headed up by an Arbiter, not that he seems any use at mediation as he heads for a court case against his own in-laws… Albia’s own father supplies helpful local contacts – suggestions both he and the contacts may regret. Against the background of Domitian’s return to Rome and incipient gang warfare, our intrepid sleuth explores high-end pampering and celebrity dining in upwardly mobile…

A Capitol Death

Flavia Albia, book 7

Something’s coming, something big… and it’s Domitian’s double Triumph over the Chatti and Dacians – or, in the absence of prisoners and booty, borrowed vases and actors impersonating miserable foreigners. Everything is held up while the actors have time to grow their beards. All Rome has been taken over by this colourful festival, though Our Master’s day may be blighted because a man has fallen to his death from a revered religious site: did he fall, or was he pushed – and will it affect the omens? A determined witness knows the answer, or thinks she does. Her eyesight may…

The Grove of the Caesars

Flavia Albia, book 8

With Tiberius Manlius called away to the country, Albia takes charge at home. She receives a nasty imperial present that she cannot give away. Her tasks include looking after their building firm, with Tiberius hoping for a contract in the Transtiberina. But people are warning her Don’t go to the Grove. The bridge across the Tiber is a rackety old thing, which leads to much more curious events than sending the innocent apprentice for a bucket of rainbow paint… Despite the distraction of bundles of unearthed old scrolls by unreadable authors, our girl cannot help noticing that the legendary gardens Caesar left…

Sunday Times Crime Club Star Pick

A Comedy of Terrors

Flavia Albia book 9

Written in Lockdown, so perhaps unusual wildness colours this story. It is Saturnalia. Albia has to manoeuvre through riotous festivities, knowing that the arrival of her husband’s two bereaved little nephews means she is trapped. Everyone expects her to make everything run smoothly for her household – presents, lights, decorations, and not choosing the wrong person as King for the Day. She doesn’t want to be maternal, she wants a job – but work has stopped for the holiday. While her husband is drawn into a sinister vigiles investigation that he doesn’t want to talk about, Albia is stuck with…

Desperate Undertaking

Flavia Albia, book 10

Our scene is set on the Field of Mars. Some of the character list will be familiar; some are deadbeats, some merely dead. Old friends of Albia’s parents are in town – while they are away. A maniac with a theatrical bent is planning gruesome murders, with helpers who leave victims to be discovered in ghastly situations, defiling some of Rome’s iconic monuments. The vigiles want to pass this off as a stunt that went wrong. With the old informing excuse that she needs the money, not to mention competing with her parents, Albia investigates. The series of appalling deaths…

Fatal Legacy

Flavia Albia, book 11

After the extreme violence of Desperate Undertakings, here is a story where nobody seems to have died except one man, forty years ago, at a reasonable age, from catching a cold. Everyone loved him, it is said. He left a will. Quintus broke in: ‘And where is the will going to be? First, it is left lying around on a side table. Gathers mice droppings for a year or two, has wine spilled on it. Once all the bequests have been doled out and after niggly Uncle Pedanticus has wittered off into oblivion, then some of the scroll is torn up…

Death on the Tiber

Flavia Albia, book 12

Old Father Tiburinus rolls down from the Apennines, laden with silt and much worse things. Albia and Tiberius spot that a dredger has pulled a corpse out of the river, a corpse that bears evidence of foul play, although that fails to excite the authorities. A boatload of tourists of a well-heeled type has come and gone, leaving a mystery behind; it happens at a crucial time in the ever-warring gangster community. Albia will have to consider not only Rome’s endemic violence but the failings of the various public bodies who are supposed to tackle crime and threats to the…

There Will Be Bodies

Flavia Albia, book 13

Uncle Tullius has bought a house. Ten years after Mount Vesuvius erupted, he wants to support the bereaved community (for tax reasons) so he has acquired a bargain on Bay of Naples. His amiable nephew is to renovate the property – in the course of which, as Tiberius tells his sceptical workmen, there may be grim discoveries. These will have to be investigated by Albia: something for the boss’s wife to do while she waits for nice furniture to arrive and the water supply to be reconnected. Death in the Roman world, as now, can be from domestic cruelty, a…

How many young men, men of talent and courage, had given up their lives to honour the gods, supposedly, but really in pursuit of fame, wealth and all the joys their wealth and fame could bring?

Murder in Purple and Gold

Flavia Albia, book 14

Bodies of murder victims are often found by dog walkers. Albia should not go down to the valley of the Circus Maximus after dark: in the dangerous shadows Barley starts barking at a corpse. It’s a youthful driver for the Purple faction of charioteers, a future celebrity, trained by a very famous, famously pushy previous champion. A driver from the Golds is immediately fingered – and the Golds are her husband’s team… A rapid drive around Formula One showed striking parallels between then and now, from technicalities of vehicles and horses to drivers’ skills and temperaments, team dynamics, team rivalries,…