Rating: 
Summary: Three Hands in the Fountain: Roman History Mystery
Review: Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco series of murder mysteries set in ancient Rome (AD 70-73) is spot-on. Besides being riveting mystery novels, Davis' historical knowledge is both extensive and up-to-date. (I should know. I have recently received a doctorate in Roman history and am whiling away the long wait for an academic post.) "Fountain" offers an almost painless introduction to the supposedly tedious subject of Roman aqueducts and water management. In the novels, obscure facts of Roman history (such as the organization of the vigiles, Rome's firemen and police, or the Maiuma, a religious carnival involving nude bathing - in "Palmyra") come alive. What's more, Davis does this with humor and a light touch. She completely undercuts the supposedly stuffy image of the ancient Romans with Falco's irreverent perspective. Davis is 1000 times better than Colleen McCullough's bloated "First Man in Rome" series.
Rating: 
Summary: Advance reading
Review: Living in Hong Kong has a few advantages, one of which is access to the UK release of the latest M Didius Falco novel. A serial killer is loose and body parts are showing up in strange places. Petronius is acting strange, Helena's brothers are causing problems, and Falco is now under the spell of two women. Just another day at the office.This book makes for enjoyable reading, though Falco seems to have lost some of his Sam Spade toughness. However, this latest effort is much better than 'Last Act' and is a reminder that human nature (and human evil) hasn't changed much since Rome. Falco is back.
Rating:
Summary: Marcus stay in Rome and its environs, please.
Review: Marcus Didius Falco, what a character. As if there aren't enough books to read set in modern times, there are excellent stories set in the past as well. I buy these things and let them sit on the shelf and then when I have the time to pick them up, I can't put them down. If you enjoy historical fiction and a good mystery story, read all of these, maybe skim a few pages here and there, but enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Didius falco goes soapy.
Review: Ok. I cheated. My loving spouse brought this back for me from Australia where it's already in paperback. In this one, Didius Falco deals with domestic strife (his, his in-laws', and buddy Petro's) and a serial killer whose victims' body parts keep ending up in Rome's water system. Highly entertaining, but I wish that Davis would have introduced the killer earlier in the book and developed the character a little more fully. A red herring or two and a couple of alternate suspects would have been nice, too. In some ways, it was almost as if the killer and his motives were an "oh, yeah" after the soap suds. Will I go back to Davis' Rome? You bet. Looking forward to "Two for the Lions".
Rating:
Summary: I love this series!
Review: The Falco boks are one of my "guilty pleasures", extremely readable detective books that entertain, and are, unfortunately, too short. They also give the reader little dollups of Ancient Roman history, and these go down very well. Now that Edith Pargeter has died, and Brother Cadfael will no longer solve crimes in medieval England, this is my favorite historical detective series. May the author live long and prosper!
Rating:
Summary: A Serial Killer in Ancient Rome!
Review: This is another great entry in the Marcus Didio Falco series. We learn all about the ancient Roman acqueduct and sewer system as we watch Falco go after a serial killer. (Yes they must have had them even then). Falco is back in Rome with his wife and baby daughter and in urgent need of employment as usual. But he sort of falls into this particular case. He and his friend Petronius are sitting by a non-working fountain taking some much-needed R and R when they discover a severed human hand. This sets them both on a quest to catch a serial killer that it appears has been abducting and killing women for a long time. Like all of Ms. Davis' books this book is great fun. We get to renew our acquaintance with old friends and meet some new ones as well. I can hardly wait for the next episode.
Rating:
Summary: A Serial Killer in Ancient Rome!
Review: This is another great entry in the Marcus Didio Falco series. We learn all about the ancient Roman acqueduct and sewer system as we watch Falco go after a serial killer. (Yes they must have had them even then). Falco is back in Rome with his wife and baby daughter and in urgent need of employment as usual. But he sort of falls into this particular case. He and his friend Petronius are sitting by a non-working fountain taking some much-needed R and R when they discover a severed human hand. This sets them both on a quest to catch a serial killer that it appears has been abducting and killing women for a long time. Like all of Ms. Davis' books this book is great fun. We get to renew our acquaintance with old friends and meet some new ones as well. I can hardly wait for the next episode.
Rating:
Summary: Another fun Falco mystery
Review: This is my third one. I've read two. One Virgin Too Many, and A Dying Light in Corduba. This one is before Virgin and after Corduba. Junia Junilla Laeitana (partially named after a wine!) has been born to Falco and his 'wife," the aristocratic Helena. Anacrites, Chief Spy and Falco's sworn enemy, is just beginning to come out of convalescence after being beat up in the previous book and being nursed to health by Falco's Ma. Claudia Rufina, a character from the last book, has been engaged to Helena's snotty brother Aelianus. Falco's best friend Petro has been fired from the police force after being unfaithful to his wife with a gangster's daughter, and Petro and Falco have teamed up to form an investigative partnership. They find a human hand in a fountain that is being repaired by a civic workman and rapidly it comes to light that there has been a serial killer at work during the Roman Games for years. This is not good news. The ex-consul Frontinus employs Falco and Petro to stop this person. As usual, Falco and Petro have problems of their own, and Rome's bureaucracy is not entirely helpful, while the actual mystery, particularly in this story is not entirely the point. (I did have a quibble with its resolution, however.) The Local Color of Ancient Rome, and surroundings in this book, is so well conveyed through Falco's dry wit and wary yet hopeful humor that the read is just plain fun. And this mystery particularly wrily displays the struggle with bureaucracy that has been Rome's legacy to the modern day. One scene has Falco and Helena registering the birth of Julia Junilla Laeitana (partially named after a wine!) at the birth registry office and that is quite funny.
Rating:
Summary: Another fun Falco mystery
Review: This is my third one. I've read two. One Virgin Too Many, and A Dying Light in Corduba. This one is before Virgin and after Corduba. Junia Junilla Laeitana (partially named after a wine!) has been born to Falco and his 'wife," the aristocratic Helena. Anacrites, Chief Spy and Falco's sworn enemy, is just beginning to come out of convalescence after being beat up in the previous book and being nursed to health by Falco's Ma. Claudia Rufina, a character from the last book, has been engaged to Helena's snotty brother Aelianus. Falco's best friend Petro has been fired from the police force after being unfaithful to his wife with a gangster's daughter, and Petro and Falco have teamed up to form an investigative partnership. They find a human hand in a fountain that is being repaired by a civic workman and rapidly it comes to light that there has been a serial killer at work during the Roman Games for years. This is not good news. The ex-consul Frontinus employs Falco and Petro to stop this person. As usual, Falco and Petro have problems of their own, and Rome's bureaucracy is not entirely helpful, while the actual mystery, particularly in this story is not entirely the point. (I did have a quibble with its resolution, however.) The Local Color of Ancient Rome, and surroundings in this book, is so well conveyed through Falco's dry wit and wary yet hopeful humor that the read is just plain fun. And this mystery particularly wrily displays the struggle with bureaucracy that has been Rome's legacy to the modern day. One scene has Falco and Helena registering the birth of Julia Junilla Laeitana (partially named after a wine!) at the birth registry office and that is quite funny.
Rating: 
Summary: Review
Review: Three Hands in the Fountain (Lindsey Davis, 1996) is quite a disappointment. Although genuinely funny, with good dialogue, the plot is a mess. The setting is Rome, vividly depicted, and seen through the eyes of a plebeian, with emphasis on the waterworks, "a vital state concern, and had been for centuries. Its bureaucracy was an elaborate mycelium whose black tentacles crept right to the top", and on the bureaucratic complications of the aqueducts. To these waterworks, someone is adding various pieces of human anatomy-gore, with much scope for black comedy. It soon becomes apparent that the murders are linked to the many Roman Games, giving the informer hero Marcus Didius Falco "an excellent excuse to spend much of the next two months enjoying himself in the sporting arenas of our great city-all the while calling it work". The atmosphere of "watching scores of gladiators being sliced up while the Emperor snored discreetly in his gilded box and the best pick-pockets in the world worked the crowds" is vivid and almost tangible. Setting, therefore, is quite good (although certainly not comparable to the brilliant depiction of Rome in Robert Graves' superb I, CLAUDIUS). What is not so good is the actual plot: the detection is not very good, with few clues to speak of, and no suspects; and the murderer's identity is a complete let-down, completely characterless, and introduced on page 231 of 294. This is not what I expect from an author The Times suggested as being "well suited to assume ... the title Queen of the Historical Whodunnit".
|
