One Virgin Too Many
Published June 1999 by Century at £15.99
ISBN: 071267702X
See Review by
Phyllis Davies
Her new Falco bestseller
Falco returns home to Rome for his eleventh appearance in this highly
popular and successful series. As a reward for his Census work Falco has at last been made
an equestrian. Yet imperial favour, coupled with his new duties as Procurator of the
Sacred Poultry of the Senate and People of Rome, brings its own complications. Not only is
he now ensconced in all the trappings of the Establishment and state religion but Falco
also has a troublesome new partner, Aelianus, to deal with.
Private and public business merge as he is sent to investigate the disappearance of a
young girl selected to be a Vestal Virgin. Closely watched by his ex-partner Petronius and
the vigiles who are just waiting for him to slip up, Falco is sorely determined to solve
this mystery. Meanwhile Aelianus is nagging him for advice about a corpse he stumbled over
in the Sacred Grove of the Arval Brothers - an event which may be strangely linked to the
missing girl.
Praise for Lindsey Davis Two for the Lions
'Witty and literate... Two for the Lions is the tenth Falco novel; he's showing no
signs of flagging.' The Times
Three Hands in the Fountain
'Rich with Roman skulduggery' Scotland on Sunday
A Dying Light in Corduba
'The cast of characters are as various, corrupt, nasty and gnarled as the best of
Dickens, described with similar scope and loving attention' Mail on Sunday
Lindsey Davis was born in Birmingham but now lives in Greenwich. After an English degree at Oxford she joined the Civil Service but now writes full time. In 1997-8 she was the Honorary President of the UK Classical Association.
City of Ice
Published May 1999 by Century at £16.99
ISBN: 0712680373
A bomb explodes in a busy Montreal street. A mob lawyer blown apart, an innocent child
murdered. Watching and powerless to prevent it is Montreal's most illustrious policeman -
Émile Cinq-Mars. Then the corpse of a young man, Artinian, is found hung from a rafter
with the inscription M-5 dangling round his neck. M5, March 5th, a calling card in
English. When Cinq-Mars discovers that Artinian had infiltrated the mob for a foreign
agent he is drawn back to the bombing.
Linking the two crimes, the detective finds himself in the midst of the Canadian mob's
move to control all crime in the country, their ambition fuelled by a new ally whose
ruthlessness knows no limits - the Russian mafia, and in particular an enigmatic crime
boss known as the Czar. Whom the Czar cannot buy off he kills but even he cannot risk
murdering the famous Émile Cinq-Mars. However, another mole, Julia Murdick, is
infiltrating the Czar's organisation, another young idealist risking her life to fight the
mob. Can she help Cinq-Mars catch the Czar? Can he save her from almost certain death when
her cover is blown - just as Artinian's was?
Montreal, the city of ice, a schizoid landscape delineated by language, the playground of Russian criminals and American spies is the coolly rendered backdrop for John Farrow's gripping thriller. In Émile Cinq-Mars he has created a character of distinction, a detective with only his morality and formidable intelligence to guide him through the looking glass, into a world where black is white and white is black.
The Fortune Teller
Published April 1999 by Century at £16.99
ISBN: 0712679596
The new thriller from the author of Monstrum
The Arctic city of Murmansk, capital of the Kola region of north Russia, early in the
new century. Inspector Constantin Vadim is back in his Arctic home town after a short and
nearly catastrophic appointment in Moscow.
But now he is faced with personal tragedy: one night his young wife, Natalya, a doctor,
answers an emergency medical call twelve hours later she still hasn't come back. An
accident seems the first possibility. Or even a lover. But soon a more terrifying answer
emerges as Vadim's desperate investigation reveals that a second missing woman, an
American consular official, was abducted on the same night.
Now against a background of the brutal child labour colonies of the Kola Peninsula, Vadim,
in uneasy partnership with a black FBI woman agent seconded from Moscow, struggles to
establish the full story of Natalya's disappearance and the identity of a bafflingly
deranged killer.