The Falco Series

The new Emperor seeks an experienced agent...

The Silver Pigs

Falco series, book 1

Marcus Didius Falco, a Roman ‘informer’ in 70AD, is standing in the Forum one very hot day, aiming to become a classic gumshoe in the Ancient World genre of mystery fiction… At this early point in his career, he has not only to make his way in the snobbish and dangerous milieu of Vespasian’s Rome, but to overcome the prejudice amongst publishers, booksellers and readers who are wary of historical novels and off-beat settings. Our hero takes himself to Britain; there the weather is filthy, the natives are restless, the women are angry, and his mission turns into a nightmare…

Love, death and POlitics under Vesuvius

Shadows in Bronze

Falco series, book 2

Our hero, having discovered true love, has enough to worry him even before shadowy figures glimpsed late at night and a series of fatal accidents convince Falco and the Emperor that traitors are still conspiring and must be brought to book. Mourning Helena, who seems to want to abandon him, Falco sets off on a ramble through the Roman holiday spots, acquiring a goat on the Toe of Italy and accompanied around the Bay of Naples by his best friend Petronius – a member of the official police force who has somehow won himself a reputation as a ‘respectable family…

Marry in haste, die for the money

Venus in Copper

Falco series, book 3

Deliberately conceived as a classic private eye dilemma: Trying to forget the indignity of being bailed from jail by his mother, Falco accepts a case from nouveaux riches private clients. Meanwhile he is trying to lure Helena Justina to live with him, which may prove extremely dangerous, given the notorious instability of Roman real estate. When the man he is protecting dies (mother was right: don’t lick your plate) our hero finds himself paid off and rehired by the chief suspect. She is a “professional bride”, or according to her, a nice girl who does a lot of sewing (and…

Death lies beyond the River Rhine...

The Iron Hand of Mars

Falco series, book 4

Two mysteries from the incomplete ‘Histories’ of Tacitus provided the ideas for the plot of Falco’s German adventure. It falls to him to end the rebellion of Civilis and Veleda, who had tried to create a united Celtic Europe. This he does in his own unusual fashion, helped by Nero’s barber (out of work since Nero’s suicide) and by a shy lad who likes talking to girls. In Falco’s way stands an uppity legion, who have a notorious past in Britain, and Titus Caesar, angling after Helena. There are corpses which have vanished in the murk of the rebellion, corpses…

A murdered legionary: Falco is Prime suspect

Poseidon’s Gold

Falco series, book 5

Most historical novelists dream of a very long series family tree that will take them from the Normans to the First World War; the Falco family just has a very wide one… This extended tribe, originally pasted in as horrible wallpaper, finally take over our hero’s life. Commissioned by his mother to exonerate his late, lively brother from a catalogue of appalling schemes, Falco first finds himself suspected of murder, then – worse – compelled to work with his father: Geminus, a favourite with readers for some strange reason. Even Helena is arrested by Petronius as she tries to assist,…

Drownng in mystery, dying on stage

Last Act in Palmyra

Falco series, book 6

Thalia has lost an expensively trained water-organist; then Anacrites, the devious Chief Spy, makes his most dangerous appearance, this time persuading Falco to travel to Nabataea – preceded by a friendly message that the dwellers in Petra might like to peg out the Roman adventurer for the crows. Discovering the body of a dead playwright on the High Place offers a chance to dump the official mission and look for Thalia’s missing musician instead. Falco and the indomitable Helena join a seedy group of theatrical players for a jaunt around the Decapolis cities that eventually leads to Palmyra at the…

Evil sent into exile - but crime never goes away

Time to Depart

Falco series, book 7

Determined to write a Police Procedural, our author belatedly discovered that the vigiles were the Fire Brigade. So this is a groundbreaking Fire Brigade Procedural: still scope to dwell on the squaddies in the station house complaining about the poor pay, the dangerous work, the abuse from the public, the disinterest of their superiors. Falco joins his best mate Petro in a desperate attempt to stop gangsters taking over Rome, forcing the intrepid pair into brothels and horrible eating houses, as they encounter waterside fleecers, Forum degenerates, bad men who want to cut out their innards and women who want…

Liquid gold compromised by a murderous cartel

A Dying Light in Corduba

Falco series, book 8

Falco attempts networking to boost his career. A disastrous night ends with a hangover and murder; he doesn’t achieve even a smile from the dancing girl, then he finds himself forced to take responsibility for his desperately injured enemy, the Chief Spy Anacrites. Mere weeks before Helena is due to give birth, Falco and she set off to unravel an oily conspiracy in southern Spain. Lying in wait are tycoons with low motives, murderous women in disguise, and a slippery trail laid by the Roman equivalent of that bureaucratic nightmare, the Admin Trainee; he knows nothing, thinks he can do…

A serial killer stalks the Games

Three Hands in the Fountain

Falco series, book 9

The first in a loosely planned trilogy in which Falco succumbs to pressure and tries to find a partner to work with: here, his best friend Petronius Longus. Petro’s life is in every kind of crisis, so perhaps the last thing he needs is to join Falco in a search for the serial killer who has been dumping dismembered bodies in the aqueducts. Lacking forensic tools, hampered by administrative indifference, and dogged by the tiresome Anacrites – now championed by Falco’s Ma, who thinks he’s wonderful – the new partners discover unexpected tensions that may destroy their relationship; that’s assuming…

Fighting for truth in North Africa

Two for the Lions

Falco series, book 10

Still reluctantly seeking the perfect work companion, in the central book of the ‘Partners’ trilogy Falco has submitted to his Ma’s machinations and taken on Anacrites (moonlighting while on sick leave from the Palace). The Chief Spy is thrilled. Falco is depressed. The author is nervous. Will her readers accept a story in which Falco & Partner become hardworking government tax auditors? Will her editor allow a corpse that isn’t human? Will animal lovers riot? Is there any mileage in a missing plant hunt? Will plant lovers protest? Will the Anacrites fanclub allow Falco to exact revenge? If serial killing…

A lost child in a deadly lottery

One Virgin Too Many

Falco series, book 11

In the third, and final, book of the ‘Partners’ trilogy, Falco was intended to work with Helena’s nice brother, Justinus. That seemed too good to be true, so he acquires a trickier helper – not to mention both his previous partners, Petronius and Anacrites, who hover around hoping to see him fall flat on his face. An appeal to help a young child draws him reluctantly into the world of the Roman state cults – in which Fortune has given him a role of his own, though as he says, up to his boot-thongs in goose shit. A member of…

Writing for money, publishing death

Ode to a Banker

Falco series, book 12

Undeterred by his previous disasters, Falco gives a poetry reading: an illustrious audience, a spectacular locale – and a tedious patron of the arts who subsequently becomes the Body in the Library. Brought in by Petronius, Falco tangles with unscrupulous bankers, publishers and authors (actual and would-be), despising all of them and trusting none. Once again the vigiles watch and wait for him to fail. Meanwhile, Pa is in trouble, Ma is the subject of unseemly gossip, Maia is restless, the dog is pregnant, Gloccus and Cotta have yet to finish their bath-house contract, and Anacrites is hovering dangerously, trying…

Contractors on schedule for corpses in Britannia

A Body in the Bath House

FAlco series, book 13

Now it’s stippling and scumbling: fun with home makeovers – until the latest machinations of cast-off lover Anacrites pose a darker threat than normal. Falco and Helena take as many of their family as possible away from danger. Five years after they met in Britain, they go back there – to the fabulous royal palace at Fishbourne, its grand extension still on the drawing board and likely to remain there without careful management. Public Building projects never run smoothly, but few have as many hitches as this one. Two different architects jostling to take charge of the site don’t help…

Gangsters and gladiating, both bloody

The Jupiter Myth

Falco series, book 14

Beer but no oysters… It’s holiday time for Falco and Helena – until a character he had disposed of reappears, dead, and causes a diplomatic incident. Naturally Julius Frontinus and Flavius Hilaris are thrilled that they have Falco on hand to sort it for them. Although Londinium is at the end of the world, it’s attracting all kinds of entrepreneurs: the best kind, the worst kind, and lawyers. Most of the streets are not even paved, yet they are as mean as in any city where the bad guys think they own the place. Bad women lie in wait as…

Falco has his deadly day in court

The Accusers

Falco novel, book 15

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…

All the news that's fit to die for

Scandal Takes a Holiday

Falco series, book 16

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…

The ancient sports of muder and myth

See Delphi and Die

Falco series, book 17

The Greeks had a word for everything – and the Romans invented the rest. The Golden Age of tourism was the First Century AD, when the site guides – then as now – babbled incomprehensibly, the hotels were always under construction and when things went wrong, the travel companies did not want to know. Mountain scenery was panoramic but roads were rough, beds were hard (where they were available), fellow travellers were ghastly and the weather could only be relied upon to be foul. Those who died abroad knew the Roman port authorities would try to charge import duty on…

An old love dying amidst family celebrations

Saturnalia

Falco series, book 18

It is the Season of Misrule in Rome, sheer misery for Falco. Uppity slaves give orders to their cringing masters, masters try to hide in their studies, women are goosed, statues wobble, a prince has a broken heart, Helena’s brother will not decide if his heart is broken or not, children are sick and even the dog can’t stand it any more. As the festival meant for healing grudges riotously proceeds, a young man who has everything to live for dies a horrific death while the security of the Empire is compromised by the usual mixture of top brass incompetence,…

A body in teh Library lands Falco in teh spotlight

Alexandria

Falco series, book 19

My challenge here was to write a book set in ancient Egypt that would have no pharaohs, few pyramids, no respect for sacred cats, hardly any details of mummification rites, no duck hunts on the Nile, no peasants, no shadoufs and no Archimedes’ screws. Mission accomplished: Falco, Helena and their immediate family, including Aulus, go to Roman Egypt to see more of the Seven Wonders of the World. Uncle Fulvius and Cassius, later joined by Pa, are up to some pensioners’ scam, getting in the way, while Falco looks into high academic culture at the Great Library. This is home…

Nemesis

Falco series, book 20

The usual ‘Plot Summary’ would be too revealing. The book’s title says it all – no, it doesn’t suggest the half of it… The Chief Spy’s beauty salon is not for the squeamish. Falco takes a bodyblow from two personal tragedies, then is hammered by good fortune – even harder to endure. Escaping the demands of family life, he makes the first of several trips to the coast where he stumbles upon a mystery. Unexpected disappearances of innocent citizens are the relief he needs. Soon Petronius has an interest too. The friends have shared plenty of grim adventures but now…

Falco: the Official Companion

What better than to quote the jacket flap (after all, I wrote it): As the girl came running up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes… So, in 1989, readers were introduced to Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman informer, as he stood on the steps of the Temple of Saturn, looking out across the Forum: the heart of his world. Twenty years and twenty books later, Falco fans wanted a companion volume. Only here will you learn the author’s private background, including her descent from a failed assassin and how atheism improved her knitting. Here too…