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FLAVIA ALBIA
THE START OF A NEW ROMAN SERIES
THE IDES OF APRIL
LINDSEY DAVIS
£18.99 Hodder & Stoughton
hardback
The Ides of April (11th), 2013
The Ides of April is the first in a cracking new series of
crime novels set in the Rome of the paranoid Emperor Domitian and featuring
Flavia Albia, the adopted daughter of Lindsey Davis’s much loved character,
Marcus Didius Falco. Born in Britain,
she sees Rome with fresh eyes, as a woman and an outsider. Albia is now 28; she is a practised sleuth -
tough, witty, feminine, scathing, politically aware, brave and an animal lover
- something which is almost certain to get her into trouble during Rome’s
archaic sacrificial rites…
The city is
experiencing an epidemic of apparently random deaths, where victims don’t seem
to realise they have been attacked. With
the authorities in denial, Albia is hired by a dead client’s relative to find
the murderer. Soon she is tripping over high-grade
officials and the low-grade police force, some of whom want to use her talents,
while others try to divert her investigations.
One seems intent on romance; though delighted, Albia must juggle this with
having to make allies elsewhere for the case.
There are few clues. The killer
is clever, unpredictable, and uses a method so discreet it is barely discernible. Will dogged detective work ever be enough to
find him?
As the bodies
mount, a festival for the goddess Ceres offers the killer new opportunities. Albia finds herself in more danger on Rome’s
cobbled streets then she could possibly have imagined, until a trap is set – a trap,
which could go fatally wrong…
Historical novelist
Lindsey Davis is
best known for The Course of
Honour,
the true story of the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress Caenis, and for her
twenty volume mystery series featuring Roman detective, Marcus Didius Falco,
with its recent addition of Falco: the Official Companion, a cheery handbook
for readers. She has also written Rebels and Traitors, an epic novel set in the English Civil
War and Commonwealth. She has won the
CWA Historical Dagger, Dagger in the Library, and a Sherlock for Falco as Best
Detective. She has been Honorary
President of the Classical Association, Chair of the Crime Writers Association
and Chair of the Society of Authors'. In
2010, the city of Rome gave her the Premio
Colosseo, awarded 'for enhancing the image of Rome' and in 2011, she was
awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for
lifetime achievement.
For further information
contact Kerry Hood on 020 7873 6173 or kerry.hood@hodder.co.uk
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Flavia Albia is the adopted daughter of a famous
investigating family. In defiance of tradition, she lives alone on the
colourful Aventine Hill, and battles out a solo career in a male-dominated
world. As a woman and an outsider, Albia has special insight into the best, and
worst, of life in ancient Rome. A female client dies in mysterious
circumstances. Albia investigates and discovers there have been many other
strange deaths all over the city, yet she is warned off by the authorities. The
vigils are incompetent. The local magistrate is otherwise engaged, organising
the Games of Ceres, notorious for its ancient fox-burning ritual. Even Albia
herself is preoccupied with a new love affair: Andronicus, an attractive
archivist, offers all that a love-starved young widow can want, even though she
knows better than to take him home to meet the parents...As the festival
progresses, her neighbourhood descends into mayhem and becomes the heartless
killer's territory. While Albia and her allies search for him, he stalks them
through familiar byways and brings murder ever closer to home. The Ides of
April is vintage Lindsey Davis, offering wit, intrigue, action and a brilliant
new heroine who promises to be as celebrated as Marcus Didius Falco and Helena
Justina, her fictional predecessors.
1 comment:
Such exciting news!
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