Customer Reviews

A Dying Light In Corduba

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Ancient Roman private investigator Marcus Didius Falco and Chief Spy Anacrites attend the Following of the Society of Olive Oil Producers' banquet. After the dinner party ends, Anacrites is shot by an assailant using a golden arrow that was last seen as part of the costume of an exotic dancer, who is now on her way to Spain.

Falco begins to investigate the attempted murder and soon links the crime to the members of the Society of Olive Oil Producers, who are trying to establish a cartel. However, though he now understands who and why, Falco still has to find proof if he plans to go up against this economic giant. He also has promised his pregnant lover that he will be there when she gives birth. Being a person of high moral principles, Falco takes his spouse with him even if though it means placing her in danger.

A DYING LIGHT IN CORDUBA is the usual fun to read Falco mystery. Rome comes to full life with its economic crime and political shenanigans. Though the criminals are obvious early on in the story , Falco's humorous efforts to prove they did it, adds the needed element to this wonderful historical who-done-it. Falco's efforts turn this fiction into a must read for fans of the sub-genre.

Harriet Klausner

I am an avid fan of the Marcus Didius Falco series. I found this book harder to get into, but the end was well worth it. Helena's pregnancy makes the story more interesting. At first, the cartel situation is rather complicated, but as you read along and get a feel for the story, you'll find the book worth the time.

Davis latest {U.S} release takes our ever cynical hero and a very pregnant Helena to the rather pedestrian surroundings of Baetican Spain in a quest to solve the attempted murder of the odious spymaster Anacrites and the gruesome killing of one of his agents. These felonies seemed tied to the shadowy plots of the Baetican olive oil interests. All the essentials are here for another enjoyable Falco foray, but Baetica seems to hold fewer mysteries and less spine tingleing dangers than Germania Libra, Brittania, the Decapolis and other locations we've been to in the series. Furthermore the characters, specifically the rogues gallery of prospective suspects, just don't seem as rich and compelling as the supporting casts of Falco adventures past. Nevertheless, there are several memorable scenes including a rather slippery encounter with a sensuous assassin and the surprising return of the sadistic slave foreman Cornix. Buy the book, read it, enjoy it, and look forward to mor! e Falco's to come!

Lindsey Davis has succeeded in maintaining the flavour of ancient Rome and the raffish humour that permeates the Falco books. The plot is convincingly thought through and Falco's relationship with his very pregnant girlfriend, Helena Justina, is amusingly and affectionately portrayed. It is a substantial read; I hope that Davis's fans in the U.S. get to read her latest Falco book "Three Hands in the Fountain" soon. I will not spoil things by revealing the story line for this latest book, but will only say that Davis has convincingly maintained her standards yet again. A little snippet - Falco's and Helena's baby daughter is named Julia Junilla Laeitana, after both the grandmothers! "B.G." - if you are reading this review, please get in touch with me. I have changed my e-mail address and have misplaced yours. Sorry!

I love this series. While some of the verabge used was more modern and almost British slang (which I think could be remedied with a little more research)not to mention phrases that could not have been in use in acient Rome ("electric" - did they know about electricity?) the personalities of the characters are just great. I'd really like to meet these people and sit and have a cup of Falernian with them. You care from book to book what happens to them.

Keep it up Lindsey!

Oil and Spanish dancers.


The oil industry is in town and is lobbying in the time honoured method: wine, women and song. Falco is invited along for some reason, and when successful and attempted murder is discovered, he realises why.

Falco not only has to protect his arch rival, ask his mother for help and placate a jealous pregnant Helena if he succeeds in his task, he has a murder to solve.

Definitely one of the better books in the Falco series.

This is the eighth novel in the mystery series featuring Marcus Didius Falco, an informer and sleuth in Rome at the time of Vespasian. A series of books that have become hugely popular, so much so that the author is now at the forefront of historical mystery writers. It was probably a stroke of genius on her part to have novels that are extremely well researched and contain all the elements that would be and should be found in the Roman world of circa AD70, but to have a lead character who has the vocabulary of a present day New York cop. In this the eighth novel Falco and Helena Justina almost seem like long lost relations to the reader.

A dinner for the Olive Oil Producers of Baetica, goes badly wrong when one man is killed and another - Anacrites, the Emperor's spy - is seriously wounded and left for dead. Because Anacrites is to be laid up for some time, Falco is brought back into the Emperor's fold as imperial sleuth. Falco is plunged head long into the world of olive oil production and heads out to Baetica.

It soon becomes apparent to Falco that the killing was no simple murder. Falco and Helena are staying in Baetica, using the excuse of inspecting the villa and olive crops of Helena Justina's father, Camillus Verus. This case is not the only thing on Falco's mind either, impending fatherhood is creeping up on our Roman sleuth.