The Ides of April

Description

Flavia Albia is the adopted daughter of a famous investigating family. In defiance of tradition, she lives alone on the colourful Aventine Hill, and battles out a solo career in a male-dominated world. As a woman and an outsider, Albia has special insight into the best, and worst, of life in ancient Rome. A female client dies in mysterious circumstances. Albia investigates and discovers there have been many other strange deaths all over the city, yet she is warned off by the authorities. The vigils are incompetent. The local magistrate is otherwise engaged, organising the Games of Ceres, notorious for its ancient fox-burning ritual. Even Albia herself is preoccupied with a new love affair: Andronicus, an attractive archivist, offers all that a love-starved young widow can want, even though she knows better than to take him home to meet the parents... As the festival progresses, her neighbourhood descends into mayhem and becomes the heartless killer's territory. While Albia and her allies search for him, he stalks them through familiar byways and brings murder ever closer to home. The Ides of April is vintage Lindsey Davis, offering wit, intrigue, action and a brilliant new heroine who promises to be as celebrated as Marcus Didius Falco and Helena Justina, her fictional predecessors.

Historical novelist Lindsey Davis is best known for The Course of Honour, the true story of the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress Caenis, and for her twenty volume mystery series featuring Roman detective, Marcus Didius Falco, with its recent addition of Falco: the Official Companion, a cheery handbook for readers. She has also written Rebels and Traitors, an epic novel set in the English Civil War and Commonwealth. She has won the CWA Historical Dagger, Dagger in the Library, and a Sherlock for Falco as Best Detective. She has been Honorary President of the Classical Association, and Chair of the Crimewriters Association. In 2010 the city of Rome gave her the Premio Colosseo, awarded 'for enhancing the image of Rome' and in 2011 she was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement.

Praise for MASTER AND GOD: 'The narrative is rapid and the story well told with much sharp-edged detail. You can open this book and step right into a convincing yet extraordinary past.' - Independent Davis's descriptions of Rome are vivid and lively...this is a great yarn - Daily Mail While this book is a departure from her usual Falco novels, the trademark charm, piercing intelligence and ready wit are as abundant as ever... dramatic and enthralling, all the more so for being full of historical fact. The characters are intriguing and three-dimensional, and the whole is told with a humour and insight which means the reader will find the book impossible to put down. - www.thebookbag.co.uk An intimate portrait of resilience, friendship and love - Sunday Examiner, Australia