A Dying Light In Corduba [Paperback]

Lindsay Davis (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Century (1996)
• ASIN: B000MW3XDW
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,542,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lindsey Davis' Roman novels begin chronologically with The Course of Honour, the love story of the Emperor Vespasian and Antonia Caenis. Her bestselling mystery series features laid-back First Century detective Marcus Didius Falco and his partner Helena Justina, plus friends, relations, pets and bitter enemy the Chief Spy; there is a reader handboook, 'Falco: the Official Companion'. 'Master and God' set in the time of the Emperor Domitian, will be published in 2012. She has also written an epic novel of the English Civil War and Commonwelath, 'Rebels and Traitors'. Her books are translated into many languages and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Past Chair of the Crimewriters' Association and a Vice President of the Classical Association, she has won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Dagger in the Library, and a Sherlock award for Falco as Best Comic Detective. She has also been awarded the Premio Colosseo for enhancing the image of Rome, and the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement as a mystery writer.
She was born in Birmingham but now lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good one in the Marcus Didius Falco series..., October 23, 2002

By 

"cloudia" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dying Light in Corduba (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

I don't always go for mysteries set in ancient Roman times, but Didius is such a likeable character with a great sense of social irreverence and a healthy disrespect for the foibles of human nature. He's an informer or what we would call a private eye. The series has a long term arc of Didius' personal relationships particularly to his wife Helena Justina, his aristocratic in-laws, his own confusing family and many friends and enemies. In One Virgin Too Many, the first in the series that I read, Didius and Helena had a child and we learned that his brother-in-law, Aelianus had a romantic failure with a Spanish heiress. The thought of this detective in Andalucia (where Corduba is located) and more info on the background of the characters in One Virgin Too Many helped ensnare me. The mystery starts out with Didius attending the banquet for the society of Baetican (i.e. Spanish) Olive Oil Producers. After the banquet, which is a snarling vicious affair, Didius learns that his old enemy, the Chief Spy Anacrites who was also there, has been attacked and nearly bludgeoned to death, and another man, an informer Didius had only met that night, but rather liked, has been killed. Didius is hired by the imperial agent Laeta to find out what the heck is going on. Unfortunately all the olive oil producers have fled back to Southern Spain. Meanwhile poor Didius' girlfriend is about to give birth to their first child. Didius knows he must refuse the assignment. But Helena knows he must take it. Fortunately her father, the senator Camillus Verus happens to have some olive oil fields in Southern Spain. The couple visit the area under the pretext of checking out the family lands. But really they're there to investigate a murder and an attempted murder that occured in the imperial city itself. The plotting is complex yet followable, and Davis does an excellent job of creating, presenting and illustrating characters and relationships from differing social backgrounds and of various abilities. It's a very entertaining series, and this one particularly so because the Spanish portion of the Roman empire is so well drawn.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Falco is Spencer in Imperial Rome with meddling relatives, April 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Dying Light in Corduba (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

My father gave me the first in this series, "Silver Pigs," and I've kept up with it ever since. Davis isn't Elmore Leonard. Plot developments are slow, things get wordy sometimes, and the climaxes are less than astounding, but she knows Rome c. 72 a.d., her characters are winning, and getting there is all the fun. I'm going to stick with it at least to the eruption of Vesuvius (I'm betting that's where the series is headed, and it'll be a treat). One thing I have to give Davis credit for, she's filled her mystery stories with enough complications to last an empire.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, but not the best, April 19, 1998

By 

Pam "SMB,SLT" (Flint Hills of Kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dying Light in Corduba (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I always look forward to a new Falco novel. This one had to wait a while because I was hung up on Last Act. Time to Depart went quickly, but this one seemed to drag again. I guess I think Marcus and Helena need to stay in Rome more. The traveling seems to drag the story down too much. I don't remember feeling that way about the earlier books in the series, but Last Act was really bad. I stopped half way through it and let it lay for six months. This one didn't sit that long, but it did take the better part of a week to read and that seems like a little too long.

I did like the interplay betwen Falco and Helena. I missed Petronius and Falco's family. The books just seem to flow better when set in Rome. I hope the next one, which I am eagerly awaiting returns to the seven hills.