Scandal Takes a Holiday

Rating:
Summary: Love That Lindsey Davis!
Review: I always wait with bated breath for the next Falco novel, and this one does not disappoint. In it Falco and his brood are at the seaside for the summer, but not for R&R. Falco is trying to locate a missing scribe who happens to write the hottest gossip column in the daily news of that time. Bear in mind that these novels are set in 76AD - in ancient Rome. If you haven't read one of Ms. Davis' novels, I highly recommend that you do, and this one would not be a bad place to start. Then you'll want to read all the other previous 16 in the series. Ms. Davis is a delight and Falco is wonderful! The books are cheerful and humourous, but you also learn a lot about ancient Roman life. In this book we learn all about the privateers and pirates that plied the seas, and we read as Falco gets in one scrape after another. Pure delicious fun.

Rating:
Summary: exciting historical mystery
Review: In 76 AD Rome anyone who has a country home goes there to get away from the summer in the city. The gossip columnist of the state run Daily Gazette is missing. Dicclep, who goes under the pseudonym of Infamia told people he was working while visiting his aunt in Ostia, but when he doesn't sent copy back, his bosses hire informer (private investigator) Marcus Didius Falco to find him. Falco discovers that the aunt died last year and Diccles rented a shabby room near the port. Among his belongings he finds tablets with writing on them and the name Damagoras, who might be a pirate.

When Falco confronts Damagoras, the wily wealthy foreigner admits knowing the columnist and says he was going to write a book about the seaman's adventures. Although Falco doesn't believe the man is not a former pirate, he finds that their definitely are pirates are working in Ostia, kidnapping young women and demanding a ransom from their wealthy fathers. When the pirates realize the interest Falco and the authorities are taking in their lucrative kidnapping business, they decide to kill him.

It is always fun to read a new Marcus Didius Falco mystery and this novel is no exception. While trying to solve the case, Falco has to deal with his children, his wife, "his wife's family" and his own eccentric relatives who providing comic relative to a very complex storyline. Lindsey Davis makes the reader feel as if they have time traveled back to Ancient Rome because her descriptions of day to day living are so vivid and visual. This is an exciting historical mystery that doesn't glamorize Rome but shows it as it really was warts and all.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Another Great Roman Mystery from Lindsey Davis!
Review: In her newest Marcus Didius Falco mystery "Scandal Takes a Holiday" Lindsey Davis has made another hit. I usually don't read mysteries, but I make her books an exception because I like her ability to provide atmosphere. She is one of the best writers of historical mysteries and a good part of that is that after reading one of her books you actually feel as if you have been to Rome, Roman Britain, and North Africa or, in the case of the present work, the Roman port city of Ostia.

In the current book, Falco and his patrician wife, Helena Justina, are involved in searching for a scandal-mongering scribe from the Imperial sanctioned Gazette who has disappeared, apparently in Ostia while visiting his aunt. The following enticing tale involves the protagonists in contact with pirates, various relatives, including Falco's shady father and scapegrace Uncle, and numerous shady characters in an ancient port city so vividly described that you can smell the salt air and hear the gulls cry. The ending, as always, results from twists and turns that leave the reader breathless.

This is a great book to read when you want to relax from the trials of modern life. In the process the reader is reminded that such trials are only somewhat different (and in most cases a bit easier to deal with for us privileged Westerners) than those of the past. In essence difficulties in life always have and always will remain a part of the human condition.

I recommend "Scandal Takes a Holiday" without reservation.

Rating:
Summary: Falco at His Best
Review: Lindsey Davis has weaved another spell for her reader. Falco is back at his best surrounded by (and hindered) by his family. there are many authors writing crime in this format and most of them do it very well, but Lindsey Davis is still the best. There is something about Falco that endears him to the reader. The sights and sounds of Ancient Rome leap off the page at you. I have not said anything about the plot of the book, why spoil it. JUST READ THE BOOK, YOU'LL LOVE IT.

Rating:
Summary: Oh, a delightful scandal
Review: Lindsey Davis' latest Falco finds our sleuth and entire family taking a trip to Rome's port, Ostia, to track down a missing hack who has inexplicably gone missing from the Daily Gazette. The journalist in question, Diocles, writes the infamous scandal column as the pseudonymal Infamia. In the event, the murder (and its solution) takes second place to the far greater kidnap conspiracies that are going on at the port by the officially non-existent pirates.
So, Marcus finds himself with Helena Justina and their two toddlers in a vigile-rented apartment whilst Petro and Maia have managed to second a luxury villa owned by the builders-guild headman. After fruitlessly following several dead end leads in his search for the missing Diocles, Helena's studious reading of the journalistic scribblings left behind throw up a single name. Damagoras. Unfortunately, the only person who has a lead on this elusive man is Marcus' brother-in-law, the corpulent shipping clerk, Gaius Baebius, However, by the time the pair arrive at the ex-pirate's home they find themselves on the wrong end of a topiary-attacking madman, Cratidas, and end up in the first of many dark underground cells.
At this point the story really takes off as Marcus stumbles over a kidnapping of senator Posidonius' daughter, Rhodoppe. It turns out it is one of a pattern of kidnappings and one that is further complicated when the victim falls in love with one of her kidnappers, Theopompus, who promptly chases after and declares intent to marry her. This unforseen turns of events forces the kidnap gang into the open and an uneasy alliance rapidly self-destructs at Theopompus' funeral after he is also murdered. This enables the vigiles to crack down hard on them. The cast of villains includes opium smoking madams, several prostitutes and thugs and the mysteriuos Illyrian all of whom come to gether to present a formidable task to our family-man sleuth.
Throughout the story runs the political themes as the outgoing Fourth cohort, headed by Brunnius, and the incoming Sixth, headed by Petro and Rubella each seek to claim a policing coup with the breaking of the gang. Add the rest of Marcus' family to the mix, including the first time appearance of Uncle Fulvius, with the entire Camillii family and you realise the Ostian gangs don't really stand a chance. By the end Falco has discovered what happened to Diocles, uncovered corruption at the highest level, and learned to float thus bringing a neat end to the story
Davis' foray into the casebook style of the previous Accusers has swiftly gone and we're back to a style that is akin to classics such as `Ode to a Banker'. Marcus has moved on and Helena has to remind him that he is a family man now, but he still hurls himself into the adventures with aplomb and it remains a delightful read. For this reader, this latest installment is a hit and I would probably place it in my top five favourites of the Falco series. Long may they continue.

Rating:
Summary: Roman gumshoe mystery
Review: SCANDAL TAKES A HOLIDAY is a charming jaunt into the past where detective work & social customs, religions & cults, myths & superstitions, & the dangerous political climate of the times come alive as our intrepid group search the bowels of a port with an ancient history, for one of Dan Rather's predecessors.

Rebeccasreads recommends SCANDAL TAKES A HOLIDAY for all Roma-philes who enjoy an evening's mystery, or have been bewitched with Lindsey Davis' recreation of Roman life.

Rating:
Summary: Funny and exciting historical mystery
Review: The upper class in Rome get their news from the Daily Gazette. It's mostly boring--events of the Emperor, some lies (rumors of pirates are untrue), but with a load of gossip. Except that gossip has gotten thin lately as the gossip writer has taken an extended vacation. So extended, in fact, that his fellow writers hire Marcus Didius Falco, an informant, to find him.

Falco, along with his wife and assorted members of his family, head for Ostia, the port of Rome where Diocles was supposed to be visiting with his aunt. As Falco investigates, he finds evidence of multiple crimes--piracy that had supposedly been smashed by Pompey, professional kidnapping, and a strange mix of firefighting with professional building.

Author Lindsey Davis continues her funny and exciting Marcus Didius Falco series in SCANDAL TAKES A HOLIDAY. Falco's relations with his aristocratic wife Helena and their respective families adds to both humor and to the character depth. As always, Davis's historical detail adds to the interest and engages the reader.

I thought Davis occasionally got carried away with the family and a series of mysteries that didn't really relate to each other, making this novel a bit weaker than some of the others in the series. That doesn't mean that SCANDAL wasn't a completely enjoyable ride. I found myself laughing out loud several times and read through the entire novel in a single sitting.

Rating:
Summary: Who'd Have Thunk It, Rome Had a Newspaper.
Review: Who would have thought that in 76 A.D. Rome had a newspaper named the Daily Gazette that came complete with a gossip column? Who would have thought that Rome had a newspaper at all? What, they hand wrote it on scrolls? Ok, so it's a little stretch of the imagination. But at least it's not written in Latin.

Linsey Davis writes with an interesting mix of the ancient with the present. If you're not going to write in Latin, you had just as well bring the rest of the language up to date as well, as in "Too right, my boy!"

The story is about Marcus Didius Falco a private detective, a private informer, is on a case involving the writer of the gossip column, who has vanished. By my count this is the sixteenth in the series. And any mystery character who can survive fifteen books and still have enough to do another book has something going for them. And in this case that includes a Crime Writers Association award as well as a legion of fans.