Time to Depart (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries (Hardcover))

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Summary: Hot time in old Rome for Falco and friends
Review: Balbinus Pius, the notorious Roman crime lord, has just been sent into exile so things should be quiet in Vespasian's city, right? Wrong. First, an organized band of thieves pulls off a major heist. Then the dead bodies start showing up. Falco and his good friend, Petronius Longus, will soon be joining the ranks of the dead if they aren't able to solve this mystery soon.

Unlike many private detectives who seem to have no family ties, Falco is cursed with a rogues gallery of relatives all of whom have problems that he is called upon to solve. This time his niece, Tertulla, has disappeared and his father's load of Syrian glass has been hijacked.

To complicate matters further, Falco is on the outs with his best friend, Petronius, he has to find a home for an abandoned baby, he's been deputed to act as augurer at his landlord's wedding, and his girlfriend, Helena, is pregnant. Things can't get much worse for our hero, can they? Of course, they can.

One of the aspects of this book that I really enjoyed is the focus on the day to day activities of the vigiles or local police force. If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Time to Depart and suggest checking out Davis's other Falco mysteries.

Rating:
Summary: Marvellous Stuff!
Review: In this book Helena and Falco are back in Imperial Rome. The stories seem to be more exciting when Falco's on his own turf. This story tells about rival gangs and gangsters in ancinet Rome. I don't know whether it's comforting or not to know that these types of bad guys have been around forever. Falco and his friend Petro get involved in a city wide manhut. Corpses turn up along the way. We see heists, murders, fraud and the whole gamut in this book. It's a rollicking good tale, and I can hardly wait for the next one.

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Summary: The Too-Long Arm of the Law
Review: The Rome of the Vespasian's time may be ancient to us, but it's home to Marcus Didius Falco, the emperor's informer and hero of "Time to Depart," the seventh book in this series by Lindsey Davis.

The departure in the title is that of Balbinus Pius, the godfather of Rome's underworld. Convicted of a capital crime, he is given "time to depart" under law to escape execution. Return to the city would mean death.

Shortly thereafter, the city is hit with a number of grandiose crimes: a market is emptied of valuable goods, the goldsellers are robbed in daylight, and, worst of all, men connected with Balbinus' trial are found tortured and killed. Falco finds himself in the center of these troubles in a number of ways. The goods he bought overseas on behalf of his father were among the stolen goods, and his best friend, Petronius Longus, was the officer who put away Balbinus. On behalf of the emperor, he must help his Petro determine who is seeking to replace Balbinus, as well as secretly determine who in the empire's version of a police force, may be on the take.

Falco is also troubled by domestic matters when he finds that his lover, the daughter of a Senator who cannot marry him under law, is pregnant. Apart from the legal troubles (which, irritatingly, are neither resolved, nor did it turn out as threatening as Falco thought), he also needs to find a home, both for his expanding family and a mongrel dog determined to join them.

One of the pleasures of visiting a historical world is in seeing just how different it is from our day. The world of ancient Rome did not have autos or phones, windows or locks on doors. A high-rise meant a five-story building. You didn't walk down certain streets, especially after night, or you had a retinue of club-wielding slaves that you hope will protect you when needed. Family links were not just optional, but vital, even when its members were undesirable (and Falco's extended family provide him with a great source of frustration, from his neer-do-well father to his lazy brothers-in-law). Graft, prostitution, murder, influence peddling and organized crime are not modern inventions by any means, but in a world measured on the human scale, these are take on an intimate, almost claustrophobic quality. Falco's world is smaller than ours, who can live in one city and drive to another to work, and "Time to Depart," for all its grand scope, is also an intimate novel.

It's also a longer novel than needed. When the crime wave breaks out and no suitable candidates for the role of instigator offered, it becomes apparent what's going on, and suspicions are confirmed after about 275 long pages. After that, events pick up speed, and the resolution of most of these threads are efficiently weaved in the book's remaining 125 pages, concluding with a wedding (not Falco's) which will either leave you shaking your head at the licentiousness of ancient Romans, or remind you of the receptions you attended.