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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superior detail--funny and rich, December 6, 2002
It's been a tough time for Roman informant Falco. First he and his father discover a decomposing body buried under the tiles of his bathhouse. Second, his chief rival begins stalking his sister. Third, Emperor Vespasian wants him to go to Britain to sort out a building project gone bad. Finally, Falco's been asked to find work for his wife's overly energetic but highly impractical brothers. When the chief murder suspects turn up missing, Falco decides to go where the biggest building project is located--Britain--even though he hates that dreary island. Britain is every bit as dreary as Falco remembers from his days in the military, and it's still a sleepy province far from the civilization of Rome. But Vespasian wants to build a fancy palace for one of the few local kings who supported Rome during a recent rebellion--and he doesn't want to have to pay too much. Falco finds the building crews at war with one another, and nasty hints that the corruption goes even deeper than is usual. Unfortunately, those who benefit from the graft want to keep things just the way they are. It's up to Falco to sort out the problems without creating a diplomatic crisis for his Emperor. Fortunately, Falco's brothers-in-law turn out to be hard-working, if impractical, and his wife, Helena remains a pillar of strength. Which is lucky when the body count really starts to mount. Author Lindsey Davis delivers an exciting and amusing tale of mystery and history. Falco is a richly detailed character with a lot going on in his life and a lot of constraints that keep him from just throwing out all the scoundrels and starting over. Davis weaves together the multiple mysteries in the novel into a complete whole, gives an intriguing glimpse into what Rome and its provinces might have been like when Rome really did rule the world, and does it with a light tough that keeps the pages turning. A BODY IN THE BATHHOUSE is a fine and rewarding mystery.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If Philip Marlowe Had A Lot of Relatives..., November 18, 2002
The thing about most detectives is that they're loners. But...sometimes down these mean streets a man must walk...around the corner to his mom's house. And so what? I always wondered what would happen if the great detectives had families; if Philip Marlowe had had an annoying brother in law, or a cousin with gender-identity issues, etc. Most people do have families, and one of the things I like best about Falco is that his involvement with his family, as well as being typically Roman, makes him both more believable and more interesting. Yes, sometimes the details do get muddled up, and the publishers should [bump] their proofreader on the back of the head, but this book is very well worth reading; the tidal wave of archaeological and historical detail is refreshing, and Davis manages to concoct yet another end-of-the-book welter of chaos and carnage that manages to be different from the previous rucks. Fun to read, sharp and intelligent...except for Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January books, I haven't enjoyed historical fiction , or believed in its re-created worlds, this much since Mary Renault died.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Back to Britannia, December 31, 2003
Falco revisits old haunts here, returning to Britain "five years" after the start of this series. In the interim he's had many far-flung adventures in increasingly domesticated situations. The setting provides numerous opportunities for Davis to take jabs at her fellow Britons, while developing Falco's sleuthing after misbegotten building contractors-as if the caustic author were revenging herself on a bad personal experience. The first two-thirds of the story is more scornful witticisms than it is mysterious. Oh, right, there are some bodies falling from the scaffolding but what can you expect on an imperial construction site in barbarian Britannia? Falco has it easy for over 200 pages of banter with hardly a hint of suspense among the evident corruption. Davis is true to the modern archaeological finds at Fishbourne in that the construction of the royal palace hardly rises above its foundations. The story is more fun for its incidents and argot than plot and action. Falco's final apprehension of the miscreants makes little sense because it's so accidental. The slow pace of the first two-thirds of the story corroborates my previous suggestion that Davis, and Falco, are best when they stay close to Rome rather than gallivanting about the Empire into some provincial backwater like Palmyra, Corduba, or Britannia. This volume is not one of my favorites in the series. This book should be read after Ode To A Banker because some issues and nefarious characters there continue here, along with Falco and his now familiar menagerie. Actually, this volume is the middle of a trilogy that concludes in The Jupiter Myth (still in hardback at this writing). The cover art on my pb copy (with the new circular mosaic theme) differs from that shown on Amazon.
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