Alexandria
(Falco 19)
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
'I came fully equipped with the old prejudice that anything to do with Egypt involved corruption and deceit.'
AD 77. Egypt was the destination of choice for Roman tourists, being home to not one but two Wonders of the Ancient World, a Centre of Culture, and people with exotic habits.
Unfortunately, when Marcus Didius Falco pays a visit he discovers it's also a hotbed of schemers and murderers. When the Head Librarian dies in suspicious circumstances, the Roman authorities are only too happy to dump the case on one of the Empire's most celebrated investigators - all adding up to a typical Falco family vacation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A locked-room murder provides Marcus Didius Falco with an intriguing challenge in Davis's 19th novel to feature the first-century Roman sleuth (after 2007's Saturnalia). In the spring of A.D. 77, while on vacation with his family in Alexandria, Egypt, Falco is stunned to get word that Theon, the Great Library's head librarian, with whom he just dined, has been found dead with neither marks of violence on the body nor evidence of how the killer got away from the scene of the crime. Falco probes the academic politics surrounding the Great Library to determine whether one of Theon's potential successors was the culprit. Other deaths follow, including that of a philosophy student, mauled by a crocodile that escaped from the local zoo. While the impossible crime's solution may disappoint some readers, the twisty plot with its various false leads and the author's plausible depiction of ancient Alexandria make this one of the stronger entries in this solid historical series.
