Lindsay Davis

Well, I love her. Have fallen behind on the Falco series, but read the first eight or ten of them, I'd guess.

She is probably my favourite author in this genre. I love her humour and I love the characters. I've read them all up to date, and eagerly grab each new one as it comes out.

I'm another fan of Falco, but I am rationing myself and trying to read in order, so it depends on which library I am at to get through the earlier ones.

I absolutely adore Lindsey Davis. She throws in such wonderful historical details and I do love her characters.

For those catching up, I think the later books are just as good ad the earlier ones. I absolutely adored The Accusers and Alexandria.

I love Lindsey Davis too. I only recently discovered her so I have a lot of pleasurable reading ahead. I have only read the first two in the Falco series. For Valentine's Day my husband bought me Venus in Copper. Some of the hardbacks are out of print but he found a nice copy on Alibris. Can hardly wait to get it.

Has anyone read her other books, not in the Falco series?

I've read The Course of Honour, and I liked that very much also.

#7 Thanks. I have heard it is Lindsey Davis' favorite.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Course of Honour. She wrote it before the Falco books and I can't understand why no one wanted to publish it then.

I haven't read Rebels and Traitors yet, but I probably will eventually (I'm just not all that interested in the English Civil War). She has a new Roman (non-Falco) book coming out in March, which is nice, but I hope she's not done with Falco.

Falco is a favorite character. A friend disposing of his fiction books offered me two series: The Lindsay Davis, series, which is still growing, and the Judge Dee volumes.. about 8 I think. Try to read them in order since characters come and go, and even criminals re-appear. Wish I'd had the Davis books when I was learning Latin. It would have been much more fun. I'm about to start the three hands in the fountain. One complaint: the maps in the paperbacks are too small for these old eyes. I love looking for mentions of produce that won't reach Italy until after 1400 -- there are very few slips.

I used to love the Falco series but eventually grew tired of them - the background to each book was brilliant and well-researched but I found the way the characters spoke to be stilted - Falco calling Helena(?) old fruit or something like that (many years since I read them so my memory is straining a bit).

I may get tired of Falco, too. Some of the motivations for his travel to different parts of the empire is a bit thin and forced, but I'm still enjoying the geography and culture challenges. I got tired of Judge Dee, and just scanned the last two. I think he may have run out of good source materials to build the cases on. Reading the two series back-to-back has raised some questions about culture and trade across asia -- musical instruments, foods, etc.

I like Falco, but I do get annoyed by his behavior sometimes. It seems that he's deliberately obnoxious beyond all reason and uses the excuse of being an informer, even in routine interactions. The same goes for his belligerant family. None of them would be very likable if you met them for real.

Falco being the way he is (and trying to be a hard case) works for me. It makes the books feel more realistic, he's not wealthy of course but he has plenty of privilege in his life, and that kind of badgering is pretty standard interrogation stuff. I think Davis' humor just gets sharper and sharper.

I'm really not enjoying the new spin-off series about Flavia Albia. She doesn't act like a child largely raised by Falco and Helena and smacks of obnoxious, negative "girls today" grumbling. Given the culture of Rome at that time, I don't think a young widow detective will ever work. It stretches reality a bit too much.