Tangled Web UK Review February 2007
Saturnalia by
Lindsey Davis
pbk out February 08
(Arrow)
at £7.99
It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short, the nights are for wild
parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to
adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. The logistics go wrong; she acquires a mystery
illness - then a young man is horrendously murdered and she escapes from house
arrest. Marcus Didius Falco is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites, in
a race to find the fugitive before her presence angers the public and makes the
government look stupid. Falco has other priorities, for Helena's brother Justinus has
also vanished, perhaps fatally involved once more with the great lost love of his
youth. Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule, the search seems
impossible and only Falco appears to notice that some dark agency is bringing death to
the city streets.
Lindsey Davis and Marcus Didius Falco are back and, after a two-year hiatus, it is
not without a significant amount of pleasure that the cynical informer from Ancient
Rome can be welcomed in Saturnalia, his eighteenth outing.
In all, Saturnalia has all of the hallmarks we have come to expect from the series,
yet which again is entirely different from all that have gone before it. Such are the
story's strengths that this may well be book eighteen, but new readers need not start
from scratch to enjoy this novel, so well written – and so well defined – is the plotline.
The pace of the novel is relentless, with Falco having to be at his peak in order to
unravel the mysteries set in front of him in his own inimitable style. That the style is
so well honed – and, at times so tongue in cheek – is yet further testament to the
author's ability to tell a story that is intriguing, funny and captivating by degrees.
From first page to last, Lindsey Davis has again conjured up something that
makes the pages spin and long may the reign of her roguish "Detective" continue.
(
Chris High
Chris High - Author Multi-media Promotion Service www.chrishigh.com)
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