A comedy of terrors A Flavia Albia novel

Mid-December, Rome, 89 CE: a madhouse descending deeper into madness each day. Chaos always surrounds Private Informer Flavia Albia, but it's now Saturnalia, the weeklong, riotous celebration offering free food, and, gods preserve us, free wine. Flavia's magistrate husband, Tiberius, is investigating organized-crime interests at war over control of the festival nuts, and some "nobbling nut-scammers" are selling spoiled goods. Albia takes on a client with a poignant problem that involves a precious parrot and a mummified leopard. The insanity of it all comes to a gruesome conclusion at the totally over-the-top banquet of the emperor Domitian. Who knew they had flame throwers? Flavia is, of course, front and center through it all. Despite her new domestic responsibilities to her two foster children, she refuses to be "doomed by parenthood." This ninth series title, after The Grove of the Caesars (2020), is packed with the usual colorful assortment of characters and surprising details of life in the ancient city. Who knew they had clam bakes? Io, Saturnalia!

Davis's strong ninth mystery set in ancient Rome starring private informer Flavia Albia (after 2020's The Grove of the Caesars) finds Flavia's husband, Tiberius Manlius, a magistrate in charge of the ancient Roman equivalent of consumer protection, drawn into his own inquiry. Nuts being sold in honor of the Saturnalia festival have made several Romans sick. Tiberius's assistant believes that organized criminals, seeking to eliminate competition by sabotaging rivals in the nut trade, are responsible. Soon after Tiberius begins to investigate, the severed head of their pet sheep is left on their doorstep. With characteristic humorous disdain, Flavia takes the threat in stride ("Criminals can be very blinkered. They do not grasp that a householder and his wife have neither time nor energy to respond to stupid gestures"). After she teams up with Tiberius, they uncover a wide pattern of racketeering that includes murder, public corruption, extortion, and tax fraud. Davis convincingly depicts first-century mobsters, an aspect of ancient Roman criminality that's been underutilized by authors writing about this period. This series remains as fresh as ever. (July)

In 89 CE Rome, private informer Flavia Albia has little to do during the raucous festival of Saturnalia but watch husband Tiberius and the Fourth Cohort challenge organized crime over the sale of nuts at the festival. Things change when gang war breaks out and her husband's life is threatened. With a 30,000-copy first printing.