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Title: Saturnalia
Author: Lindsey Davis
Genre: Historical Mystery--Ancient Rome (18th in a continuing series)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A Germanic rebel priestess, brought to Rome to be the centerpiece of an ambitious politician's triumphal parade, has escaped and is loose in Rome only days before the festival of Saturnalia. She left behind her host/captor's son--his body in one room and his head in the foyer pool. Marcus Didius Falco's been assigned to find her--before the chief spy can. Of course, poor Falco has a personal stake. His brother-in-law is the priestess' former lover, and Falco's in-laws are not pleased that their son has disappeared as well. Add in some wacky relatives, a crazy ghost, and the fact that a lot of the beggars in the city have been mysteriously turning up dead, and Falco has more to worry about during the Festival of Misrule than what to buy his wife for a present. Although he still does need that present.
Thoughts: So, a confession. I actually thought that this was from John Maddox Roberts' SPQR series, not Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco series. I'd read one of the SPQR books years ago and dimly remembered liking it. In my defense, I feel like mistaking one long-running episodic mystery series sent in Ancient Rome for another is a reasonable error. Also, the SPQR series also has a book entitled Saturnalia, which I imagine causes no end of confusion.
Well, this was a perfectly pleasant little historical mystery, despite not being the historical mystery I expected it to be. The ending's a bit rushed (this seems to be a theme this month) and one or two of the loose threads are not completely tied up. But it hangs together well and is entertaining, which is most of what you look for in category mysteries, really.
The diction is surprisingly slangy, including a fair amount of anachronistic slang. (Well, speaking English is anachronistic, of course, but I mean slang words that originate from inventions or practices that have only come to be in the last century or so.) However, given that the entire thing's in modern English, you can sort of grant the idea that it's been localized, and the speakers would have been using slangy informal Latin instead.
I'm no expert on Ancient Rome, but the author does seem to know her stuff, including a lot of minor detail that makes a world feel lived in. (See for example the major festival which a lot of authors would most likely treat with reverence. The protagonist and his in-laws don't particularly want to go, and the entire thing feels like that kind of party that you don't dare turn down an invite to but spend the whole thing contemplating dropping heavy objects on your foot to have a broken toe as an excuse to leave.)
Anyway, nothing special, but not bad.
Author: Lindsey Davis
Genre: Historical Mystery--Ancient Rome (18th in a continuing series)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A Germanic rebel priestess, brought to Rome to be the centerpiece of an ambitious politician's triumphal parade, has escaped and is loose in Rome only days before the festival of Saturnalia. She left behind her host/captor's son--his body in one room and his head in the foyer pool. Marcus Didius Falco's been assigned to find her--before the chief spy can. Of course, poor Falco has a personal stake. His brother-in-law is the priestess' former lover, and Falco's in-laws are not pleased that their son has disappeared as well. Add in some wacky relatives, a crazy ghost, and the fact that a lot of the beggars in the city have been mysteriously turning up dead, and Falco has more to worry about during the Festival of Misrule than what to buy his wife for a present. Although he still does need that present.
Thoughts: So, a confession. I actually thought that this was from John Maddox Roberts' SPQR series, not Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco series. I'd read one of the SPQR books years ago and dimly remembered liking it. In my defense, I feel like mistaking one long-running episodic mystery series sent in Ancient Rome for another is a reasonable error. Also, the SPQR series also has a book entitled Saturnalia, which I imagine causes no end of confusion.
Well, this was a perfectly pleasant little historical mystery, despite not being the historical mystery I expected it to be. The ending's a bit rushed (this seems to be a theme this month) and one or two of the loose threads are not completely tied up. But it hangs together well and is entertaining, which is most of what you look for in category mysteries, really.
The diction is surprisingly slangy, including a fair amount of anachronistic slang. (Well, speaking English is anachronistic, of course, but I mean slang words that originate from inventions or practices that have only come to be in the last century or so.) However, given that the entire thing's in modern English, you can sort of grant the idea that it's been localized, and the speakers would have been using slangy informal Latin instead.
I'm no expert on Ancient Rome, but the author does seem to know her stuff, including a lot of minor detail that makes a world feel lived in. (See for example the major festival which a lot of authors would most likely treat with reverence. The protagonist and his in-laws don't particularly want to go, and the entire thing feels like that kind of party that you don't dare turn down an invite to but spend the whole thing contemplating dropping heavy objects on your foot to have a broken toe as an excuse to leave.)
Anyway, nothing special, but not bad.
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Date: 2011-01-31 05:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 05:57 pm (UTC)From:I got through the first 50 pages of the next one on the train this morning. I'll probably finish another 50 pages or so on the way back. I read crazy fast--that's how I got through 126 books last year.
(This is also why I end up reading some utter dreck--I'm not willing to shell out for the number of books I read in a year. So I end up with random stuff from give away piles and things other people decided I need to read, possibly to make fun of it with them, and totally random things pulled from library shelves because the spine caught my eye.)
And the reviews only take about 15 minutes to write, usually at times when I'd be reading the New York Times or something online anyway.