Narrated by Christian Rodska
Falco and Helena set off for Greece to investigate two deaths, three years apart, that have occurred to travellers journeying with Seven Sights Travel, a somewhat seedy company. The current batch of customers are an odd lot, but don’t seem capable of murder – though they might be victims. Marcus thrashes around fruitlessly before finally solving the case (or cases). Christian Rodska voices Falco very well, though the storyline gets a bit lost in the middle.
Narrated by Gordon Griffin
Falco has a new plan to make money, assisting with Vespasian's census of AD 73, and exposing those who have under-declared their taxes. Working with Anacrites the spy, he investigates the businesses incolved with supplying gladiators and wild animals for the ring. He needs to make money in order to join the middle-rank, which will enable him to finally marry Helena Justina. When one of the arena lions is murdered, Falco investigates. The death toll mounts and it's not just lions. I like the Falco books, but this one is a bit lacklustre. Gordon Griffin is adequate, but not an exciting narrator. Altogether it felt as though both author and narrator were dialling it in a bit.
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.
Emperor Vespasian sends Falco to Germany to investigate the 14th Legion and clear up some events following a rebellion, the disappearance of a legate and the possibility of corruption. His obvious purpose is to deliver a large statue, the Iron Hand of Mars. Falco didn't want to go in the first place, but when his girlfriend, Helena Justina flounces off in a huff, he hopes she might be visiting her bother Justinius, already in Germany, so he agrees to the mission with a second purpose in mind. He finds Helena Justina, but ends up doing exactly what he didn't want to do, crossing the Rhine into the un-Romanised lands of the Celtic tribes. After a couple of narrow escapes he manages to complete his mission. This is the BBC audio drama, so it's an abridged version of the story, starring Anton Lesser as Falco. I enjoyed listening to them serialised on Radio4, so it was good to revisit. Anton Lesser makes an excellent Falco.
Audiobook read by Gordon Griffin, not my favourite narrator, but the Falco stories are good. This time Anacrites (not Falco's favourite person) is attacked in Rome, and badly injured, and one of his young agents is killed, so Falco, together with seven-months-pregnant Helena Justina, sails off to Spain to expose a consortium conspiracy to fix the price of olive oil. Though Falco's priority is to catch the murderer and get Helena Justina back to Rome before her baby is born. Unfortunately is becomes clear that there are factions in Rome he can't trust, and another spy is operating in the same area on a similar mission.
Read by Gordon Griffin.
Falco’s deceased brother, Festus, seems to have left a debt that Falco and his family are being pressed to repay. A Roman legionary is murdered and Falco is accused. He has a couple of days to clear himself, find the real murderer, and discover just how deeply Festus was involved in a scam with a valuable statue thought lost at sea. As before, the narrator, Gordon Griffin, is not the best. Later books narrated by Christian Rodska are better.
Vespasian's chief Spy Anacrites, is trying to arrest Falco for the theft of lead, used as plot points in both of the first two Falco books. Yes, technically he did purloin the lead, but it was done in order to track down one of the Emperor Vespasian's enemies, and is more of an error in accounting. Trying to raise the money to raise his status to middle rank so he can marry his upper-crust girlfriend, Helena Justina, Falco takes on new clients. Once again, sadly, Gordon Griffin doesn't quite capture Falco's voice, so some of the quirkiness is lost.
One of the early Falco mysteries, read by Gordon Griffin.
Falco’s girlfriend, Helena Justina’s late husband Pertinax, involved in an uprising against the Emperor, has been found strangled in his cell, but he might not be as late as believed. When Falco is sent by the Emperor Vespasian to clear Pertinax’s house and effects one thing leads to another. There’s a fire and a murder and Falco goes in search of Barnabus, Pertinax’s freedman. Falco is desperately in love with Helena, but she’s a senator’s daughter, way above Falco in rank. Their romance is threaded throughout the mystery. Sadly, Gordon Griffin is nowhere near as good a narrator as Christian Rodska was, or, indeed as good as Anton Lesser in the BBC radio dramatisations.
Audiobook read by Christian Rodska.
Marcus Didius Falco is in Londinium following events in A Body in the Bath House, and he’s up against organised crime after a body is found that should not have been in Londinium at all, as it was of the exiled murderer from the Bath House killing Marcus’s long-time friend Petro turns up, intent on catching his own quarry. Marcus’s siter gets herself into hot water and we meet Albia for the first time – a rescued street waif.
Audiobook read by Christian Rodska.
Marcus Didius Falco - the emperor Vespasian's informer (investigator), is sent to Britain to investigate corruption on the sire of a new-build palace for a British king, but not before he and his father have dug up a decaying corpse under his father's new bath house mosaic. The builders who finished the bath house floor can't be found anywhere, so it looks like they've skipped Rome. Marcus's days of travelling alone are behind him, so the party consists of Marcus, his wife Helena Justinia, their two small daughters, their truculent nursemaid, Marcus's two assistants, Helena's brothers, and Marcus's sister, there under protest to keep her safe from a dangerous stalker. Marcus hates Britain, and things on the building site get complicated when another body turns up in the king's bath house, and a coldly efficient assassin is known to be in the area. The Falco books are always reliably entertaining and the reader, Christian Rodska, does a very creditable job, though having just listened to his reading of a Hornblower book, some characters occasionally sound like C.S. Forester's Mr Bush. (That's possibly a bit unfair of me because the juxtaposition is mere coincidence.)
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