Booklog 76/2024: Lindsey Davis: Last Act in Palmyra – Marcus Didius Falco #6 – Audiobook

Narrated by: Gordon Griffin

I love the Falco books, but this one seemed too long for the story it was telling. It was still a good listen, but not so tightly written as other books in the series. Marcus and his girlfrend, Helena Justina go off to the Middle East in order to do a bit of casual spying for Rome and also to find a missing girl who has run away from her obligations as a musician. After finding the drowned body of a man, obviously murdered, they fall in with a travelling theatre company and Marcus takes the dead man's job of playwrite. They are accompanied by Musa, a priest, sent to keep an eye on them. There's another murder and an attempt on Musa's life and Marcus spends most of the book travelling from place to place with the company, writing lines that no one ever appreciates, and questioning suspects. There are a lot of the company's stops and performances that simply don't move the story forward, and though Marcus gets there in the end, it all seems a bit tedious. Gordon Griffin is not the most exciting narrator. I much prefer Christian Rodska's interpretation in the later books, or Anton Lesser in the BBC radio plays.