The Marcus Didius Falco Series, Books 1-3

Discover Lindsey Davis's beloved, long-running series featuring private informer Marcus Didius Falco, set in first-century CE Rome.

The Silver Pigs:

Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer with a knack for trouble, a tendency for bad luck, and a frequently inconvenient drive for justice, encounters the young and very pretty Sosia Camillina in the Forum. Immediately he senses that something is amiss. When she confesses that she is fleeing for her life, Falco offers to help her and, in doing so, he gets himself mixed up in a deadly plot involving stolen ingots, dangerous and dark political machinations, and, most hazardous of all, one Helena Justina, a brash, indomitable senator's daughter who is connected to the very traitors that Falco has sworn to expose.

Shadows in Bronze:

It's the first century CE in Rome and informer and occasional imperial agent Marcus Didius Falco is miserable. The high-born woman he fell in love with, Helena Justina, has broken off their stormy, impossible affair. So when Emperor Vespasian assigns Falco a task that will take him out of Rome, he can't wait. Disguised as vacationer in the company of his comrade Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine Watch, Falco travels south to Neapolis, Capreae and Pompeii where he discovers a conspiracy involving the Egyptian grain shipment to Rome. He also stumbles across Helena Justina, conveniently also on a trip out of town, who might, unwittingly, be enmeshed in this dangerous, treasonous scheme.

Venus in Copper:

A small accounting error has left Falco briefly sharing a cell with a large rat in the notorious Lautumiae prison. Being bailed out by his mother is bad enough, and things go from bad to worse when a group of nouveau riche ex-slaves hire him to outwit a fortune-hunting redhead. This woman's husbands have a habit of dying "accidentally." And, all the while, Falco tries to convince Helena Justina to live with him, a dangerous proposition, given the notorius instability of Roman real estate. In a case of murder as complicated as he ever faced, this classic tale shows Falco at his very finest.