One Virgin Too Many

Rome in the first century AD is a city of marble facades and murky dealings, and Marcus Didius Falco has seen enough of both to be thoroughly suspicious of anything that looks too tidy. Fresh off a punishing assignment in North Africa and newly appointed—if that's the word—Procurator of Sacred Geese, Falco just wants peace at home with his family. Instead, he finds himself tangled in the dangerous politics of Rome's religious brotherhoods, a murder that powerful people would prefer stayed unsolved, and the troubling disappearance of a young girl destined for the Vestal Virgins. The stakes here are personal as much as civic: Falco is a man with a family now, with something to lose, and that tension gives the mystery its real bite.

Eleven books in, Lindsey Davis writes Falco with the ease of someone who genuinely enjoys his company—and it shows. The prose is quick-witted and sharply observed, full of period detail worn lightly enough that it never slows the pace. Davis has a rare gift for making ancient Rome feel lived-in rather than costumed, and Falco's sardonic first-person voice keeps the darkest material grounded in dry, recognizably human humor. Readers who have followed the series will find old pleasures deepened; newcomers will find a confident, self-contained story that makes a compelling case for going back to the beginning.