From Amazon.co.uk
Lindsey Davis's Falco thrillers normally focus on how like us the Romans were;
The Accusers concentrates on an important difference. Prosecutors were rewarded with a portion of the guilty's goods, or fined to compensate the innocent. When a senator, found guilty in a corruption trial, apparently kills himself, Falco is hired to prove he was murdered because suicide nullifies the prosecution's financial claims. Only the question is: which of the late Metellus' heirs poisoned him, since almost all of them had more than one motive? Falco finds himself and his wife Helena caught up once again in the dark side of Roman high society and all the interesting ways in which it is contiguous with the busy life of sordid streets.
Davis's books are always at their best when Falco, as our viewpoint, is finding out something he does not know about how things work; this is a good detective story partly because of the exposition of the Roman legal system and not in spite of it. It also helps that it is one of the Davis novels in which Falco over-reaches and finds himself distinctly out of his depth; he is one of the most attractive of historical detectives because he is not infallible. --Roz Kaveney
--Ce texte provient de la
Hardcover
édition.
From Publishers Weekly
Fans of "informer" Marcus Didius Falco will be glad to find the classical world's answer to the modern-day gumshoe back in Rome in Davis's stellar historical, the 15th entry in this witty and learned series, after two adventures set in Britain (A Body in the Bathhouse; The Jupiter Myth). In an effort to resume his career as an informer on his home turf, Falco ends up playing advocate in a messy dispute that pits him against two highly successful "legals," Paccius Africanus and Silius Italicus. The convoluted case, which involves a wealthy, fractious family and tricky questions of inheritance, gives Davis the opportunity to explore the vagaries of Roman law, which she approaches with her usual mix of respect and sarcasm. The corruption conviction of senator Rubirius Metellus followed by his mysterious demise threaten the Metelli family's fortunes. Hired to prove the senator's death was not a suicide, Falco finds himself immersed in scandal, blackmail, corruption and intrigueâ€"common ingredients of legal practice. In one particularly fine scene, Falco delivers a speech in the Basilica that relies on amusing and effective rhetorical tricks. Wry, cynical and principled, Falco makes the perfect guide to Davis's vividly realized ancient Rome.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
de Lindsey Davis
de Lindsey Davis
de Lindsey Davis
de Lindsey Davis
