The Silver Pigs

I didn't need Wikipedia to verify that Lindsey Davis, author of the The Silver Pigs, was born in England. Davis writes with distinctly British class-conscious humor. Like Terry Pratchett and China Miéville, Davis builds deliciously complex worlds teeming with distinctive characters and defined by social stratification. And, of course, his protagonist of choice comes does not come from the upper echelons of society.

The main difference between Davis and his spec fiction counterparts is that Davis isn't writing about a fantasy world, but is writing about Ancient Rome. In The Silver Pigs, protagonist Falco is the ancient version of a private eye. Falco has a lot in common with the Maltese Falcon-era private eye. His landlord is hounding him for the rent, a damsel in distress is seriously complicating his life, and his devotion to the case is going to force him into slave labor and freezing-cold deprivation in an ancient British mine. Oh, wait...I guess that last part is just Falco.

I am not an expert in the history of Ancient Rome. But having recently read Empires of Trust-- How Rome Built-- and America is Building-- a New World (Thomas F. Madden) I can verify that Davis got certain details about life in Ancient Rome correct. The attitude of Ancient Romans toward Ancient Greeks, for instance, was depicted by Davis just as Madden described it- somewhat the way Americans traditionally view the French as very intellectual and a little snobby. So, as with all truly fun mystery stories, the reader not only enjoys a good who-dunnit, but learns a little about an interesting topic at the same time- in this case, about life in the ancient world.

The Silver Pigs the first in a series of 19 (to date) Marcus Didius Falco mysteries. The Silver Pigs ranks #34,931 in Books on Amazon. There is no Kindle version available. However, Davis's most recent book in the series, Alexandria, is available on the Kindle. Alexandria ranks #2,674 in the Kindle store, and #4,876 in Books.