The Silver Pigs
A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- ¥1,200
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- ¥1,200
Publisher Description
The Silver Pigs is Lindsey Davis' classic novel, which introduced readers around the world to Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer with a knack for trouble, a tendency for bad luck, and a frequently inconvenient drive for justice.
When Marcus Didius Falco, a Roman "informer" who has a nose for trouble that's sharper than most, encounters Sosia Camillina in the Forum, he senses immediately all is not right with the pretty girl. She confesses to him that she is fleeing for her life, and Falco makes the rash decision to rescue her—a decision he will come to regret. For Sosia bears a heavy burden: as heavy as a pile of stolen Imperial ingots, in fact.
Matters just get more complicated when Falco meets Helena Justina, a Senator's daughter who is connected to the very same traitors he has sworn to expose. Soon Falco finds himself swept from the perilous back alleys of Ancient Rome to the silver mines of distant Britain—and up against a cabal of traitors with blood on their hands and no compunction whatsoever to do away with a snooping plebe like Falco….
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The intriguing premise of a detective story set in Imperial Rome in 70 A.D. is unpredictably fulfilled by Davis's hero-gumshoe, M. Didius Falco, an iconoclastic young republican. Falco rescues the niece of a senator from a kidnapping attempt, is attracted by both her innocence and the secret she keeps regarding a silver ingot (the ``pig'' of the title) and then stricken when her corpse is found in a spice warehouse. Hired by her family to track down the reasons behind her death, Falco spends the winter in Britain working as a slave in a silver mine. Enduring vividly depicted hardship with customary sharp-witted pluck, he picks up the hints of a plan to overthrow Vespasian, the current emperor. He also meets the senator's divorced, sharp-tongued daughter, Helena Justina, and brings her back to Rome where they work with--and against--each other to bring the well-developed plot to its satisfying conclusion. Wisecracking in ancient idiom, Falco seems, nevertheless, a recognizably up-to-date young man, one whose honor, humor and humanity work him quickly into reader's affection. Davis's story, though couched in period detail, rewards as much for deft handling of plot and depth of characterization as for its historicity.
