Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. [10], 357, [1] p. Map. Principal

Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. [10], 357, [1] p. Map. Principal Characters The twelfth novel featuring Roman sleuth Marcus Didius Falco explores the Roman spheres of poetics and banking. When a rich banker family becomes patron to a group of struggling writers and is then murdered, Falco is sent to investigate. From Wikipedia: "Lindsey Davis (born 1949) is an English historical novelist, best known as the author of the Falco series of historical crime stories set in ancient Rome and its empire. Davis was born in Birmingham and after taking a degree in English literature at Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall), she became a civil servant. She left the civil service after 13 years, and when a romantic novel she had written was runner up for the 1985 Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize, she decided to become a writer, writing at first romantic serials for the UK women's magazine Woman's Realm....Davis suffered from the eye condition keratoconus from childhood, and in adulthood had a corneal transplant: she says "A stranger's generosity freed me from years of pain and anxiety", and urges her readers to carry a donor card. Davis's interest in history and archaeology led to her writing a historical novel about Vespasian and his lover Antonia Caenis (The Course of Honour), for which she could not find a publisher. She tried again, and her first novel featuring the Roman "detective", Marcus Didius Falco, The Silver Pigs, set in the same time period and published in 1989, was the start of her runaway success as a writer of historical whodunnits. A further nineteen Falco novels have followed, as well as The Course of Honour, which was finally published in 1998. Rebels and Traitors, set in the period of the English Civil War, was published in September 2009, and Falco: The Official Companion in June 2010. In March 2012 she published Master and God, set in ancient Rome and concerning the emperor Domitian. In 2012 Davis and her publishers Hodder & Stoughton and St. Martin's Press announced that she was writing a new series of books centred on Flavia Albia, Falco's British-born adopted daughter and "an established female investigator". The first title, The Ides of April was published on 11 April 2013 in the UK, and Enemies at Home is to be published in 2014. Davis has won many literary awards, and was honorary president of the Classical Association from 1997 to 1998."