Female Gladiators and a Corpse in a Well By Michael McLean | November 10th, 2006
The Jupiter Myth by Lindsey Davis. Warner Books, 2003. 0892967773
Marcus Didius Falco, informer for the Roman Emperor Vespasian, is stuck in Britannia. Having been sent by Vespasian, he remains (much against his will) to allow his wife (morally and legally above his touch, but a woman tends to get what she wants) to visit her family. (her aunt is the wife of the Procurator of Britannia no less!) The visit goes well until a hold over from the case that brought Falco out to the cold, rainy, backward province at the edge of the world is found face down in a well.
As the only person with a motive for the killing is Falco himself, he grimly takes on the investigation. It turns out to be unique in Falco’s experience. None of his witnesses are lying – they aren’t talking at all. That is until an old flame turns up with not only information, but with a new name and a new job – Amazonia the Gladiator. The glaidatrix’s evidence is not what Falco needed to hear. It looks like the killing was part of a protection racket with roots stretching all the way back to Rome. Nothing in Falco’s life, however, is a simple as it first appears. In a situation like this (and Falco is always ending up in one) it pays to have help. So Falco enlists the aid of his wife, his sister, his best friend, a torturer, a sleazy lawyer, a street urchin that his wife has taken in, and of course, his former lover and her cohort of female gladiators.
This, the fourteenth Falco novel, is a typical Davis triumph. Her portrayal of everyday life in the first century is excellent. Her style of first person narration – Davis herself is the voice of Falco – lends a brilliant immediacy to the tale. Davis ingeniously explains enough about the past to keep even a first time reader from getting lost without burdening this offering with useless retrospective.
by Michael McLean