|
Hear Lindsey Read
‘I stopped smiling. Poetry? Nobody
asked an informer about his intellectual life. Rutilius must be
really desperate.’
Chosen by readers, Rosina and George Harter
Plot Summary
Undeterred by his previous disasters, Falco gives a poetry
reading: an illustrious audience, a spectacular locale - and a
tedious patron of the arts who subsequently becomes the Body in
the Library. Brought in by Petronius, Falco tangles with
unscrupulous bankers, publishers and authors (actual and
would-be), despising all of them and trusting none. Once again
the vigiles watch and wait for him to fail.
Meanwhile, Pa is in trouble, Ma is the subject of unseemly
gossip, Maia is restless, the dog is pregnant, Gloccus and Cotta
have yet to finish their bath-house contract, and Anacrites is
hovering dangerously, trying to move in on the family in several
worrying ways. As the enforcers gather to encourage suicides and
the writers' group twitters hopelessly in the Temple of Minerva,
the summer heat rises while Rome echoes to the sound of
commercial institutions crashing and needy authors being dropped
after failing to meet deadlines. The safest ploy is to stay at
home reading a good book. But are there any to be had, when
heartless commercialism governs editorial decisions, and anyway
the most promising scrolls are covered with blood?
Who ate the flan? Where is the other evidence? And will Falco
be able to assemble all the suspects for a showdown in the Greek
Library, then force the killer to come clean so he wins a
confession bonus from the penny-pinching vigiles?
Research Note: the one where Shakespeare comments on The
Spook Who Spoke.
|
Reviews
'Lindsey Davis's novels about the Roman informer Falco have
always been ingenious in the way she sets up impeccably
researched Imperial Roman equivalents of modern worlds and
modern crimes... This is as elegantly picturesque in its
portrait of the Emperor Vespasian's crowded metropolis as Davis
has ever been - and the soap opera of Falco's disreputable
family continues apace.' The Birmingham Mail
'Ode To A Banker is the 12th and arguably most elegant
of the novels featuring Roman sleuth, Marcus Didius Falco.
An innocent poetry reading in a spectacular location turns
into a murder investigation as Falco is faced with a body
in the library. His meticulous investigation leads him into the
worlds of publishing and banking--worlds in which he despises
everyone and trusts no one. Publishers ruthlessly dump their
authors and commercial institutions crash as Rome swelters in
the heat of the summer. Meanwhile, Falco's family have
multifarious problems of their own. "Ode To A Banker"
is a highly entertaining, impeccably well-researched novel
from award-winning Lindsey Davis.' Amazon.co.uk
|
