Enemies at Home: A Flavia Albia Mystery

Set in Rome in 89 C.E., Davis’s sequel to 2013’s The Ides of April boasts a strong female lead. Flavia Albia, the adopted daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, who starred in his own 20-book series, carries on the family tradition as an informer, the ancient Roman equivalent of a private detective. Manlius Faustus, a government official, asks Flavia to find out who strangled Valerius Aviola and Mucia Lucilla, a newlywed couple, in their apartment on the Esquiline Hill. The investigating officer has taken the easy way out by accusing some of the household’s slaves of the crime, but Faustus has his doubts. Despite violating a number of her cardinal rules (e.g., “Never take on clients who cannot pay you”), Flavia accepts the case. Diamond Dagger Award winner Davis vividly portrays the setting, “a poisoned city, where a paranoid emperor had caused often-lethal mistrust,” but she plays less than fair in her clues to the killer’s identity. [em](July) [/em]