5.8 /10 1 Votes5.8
4/10 Fantasy Book Review Publication date 11 April 2013 ISBN 978-1-4447-5581-7 Publisher Hodder & Stoughton | 3.8/5 Goodreads Country UK Pages 356 Originally published 11 April 2013 Page count 356 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Series Flavia Albia (Falco: The New Generation) Genres Historical mystery, Crime Fiction Followed by Enemies at Home, The Spook Who Spoke Again: A Short Story by Lindsey Davis (Falco: The New Generation) Similar Enemies at Home, Deadly Election, The Graveyard of the He, Master and God, Time to Depart | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Ides of April is a 2013 historical mystery crime novel by Lindsey Davis and the first book in the Flavia Albia Mysteries (Falco: The New Generation)) series. Set in March and April AD 89, in the Aventine Hill area of Ancient Rome, the novel stars Flavia Albia, the British-born adopted daughter of Marcus Didius Falco (the hero of the author's 20-volume Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries series, published from 1989 to 2010). Albia, a widow, works as a "delatrix" (detective or private informer) in ancient Rome, like Falco. The book's front cover image depicts a small glass pot and a needle dipped in blood. It carries the strapline, "Falco: The New Generation".
Contents
Connections to the Falco series
Falco and his partner Helena are included in the "Cast list" in the book, and Flavia Albia describes them and their household and visits them during the course of the story, but they do not appear directly in the text. Helena's two brothers are mentioned as being lawyers. Falco's old friend Petro is not mentioned in the cast list, but is referred to as Flavia Albia's "uncle" in the text.
Falco's young brother Postumus, the result of Thalia's pregnancy in Nemesis, is now an awkward 11-year-old, who appears in the book.
Flavia Albia uses Falco's old apartment in Fountain Court as her office, and lives elsewhere in the same building. In Enemies at Home, it is revealed that the Didii bought over the Fountain Court block, possibly from Smaractus, Falco's former landlord.
Reception
The Irish Times reviewer wrote: "Irreverent, resourceful and hard-boiled in her patter, Flavia is a heroine to rival her contemporary counterparts VI Warshawski and Kinsey Milhone." Tom Holland reviewed the book for The Guardian and ended:
"If you want to see the worst manners, filthiest motives and saddest ethics," [Albia] says of her own line of work, "this is the profession." Thankfully, though – and as ever with a Davis novel – the narration of these horrors is done so delightfully that the final impression is curiously warm and uplifting.