Uhuh. The Falco Novels.

Hope you like the blood pouring down from the top of the page. Always expected around Falco, I'd say.

Well, to tell the truth, I stumbled onto Falco at my local library, when they put a couple of tables together and piled all the new titles onto them. Saturnalia was the first book I read. I couldn't stop, I raced back to the Library to get a few more.

I have read a few of them, but I will have to look at a synopsis or two to recall those few. I have just completed Time to Depart, a whirlwind tour of the seedy side of Rome.

That list comes from the author's site, and is the correct order of battle for the novels. (That's a military term.) Alexandria is due out next year, 2009. What Falco is doing in Alexandria, I have no idea, unless it is dimly related to Festus and his trade in statues. Then again, Vespasian may have sent him. Or is there a customer who has sent him? Was it Favonius? It would be interesting to see a taster, should one become available. Maybe Titus wants Falco out of the way for another charge at Helena Justina!

Then again, Helena Justina may have something to do with this:

In Greece we saw the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, which is quite rightly one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I yearn secretly to see all the others. Wishful thinking, of course; some are very remote. Falco has warned me sternly not to hanker for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon! But we have never been to Egypt, which has such a complex and exotic heritage. Maybe one day I shall get to see the Pyramids and Sphinx...

The Falco novels render ancient Rome and its peoples alive with attention to detail, careful recreation of society and culture, with all its colour and dross in the highways and byways. Wonderful stuff, has me racing off to read Suetonius's histories, and Pliny the Younger.

What you will find here is firstly, some reviews of the novels (hopefully in order; I have just obtained a copy of Last Act in Palmyra and about to read it. Yet to find a copy of The Silver Pigs and have a read of it; so many years ago and out of print, mainly.

My other objective here is to examine the values of the characters and perhaps, some other aspects afforded exposure by the excellent author, Linsdey Davis. So far, we have looked at family values, leadership, greed in the real estate industry, and in Poseidon's Gold, we were examining the tasks, functions and roles of family, both in these novels and generally.

Well, I hope you find it all enjoyable and a good read! Comments are welcome and if you wish to send them, then go to the main site contact page.