Marcus Didius Falco XII. In the long, hot Roman Summer of AD74, Marcus Didius Falco, private informer and spare-time poet, gives a reading for his family and friends. And as usual, things get out of hand. The event is taken over by Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and patron to a group of struggling writers, who offers to publish Falco's work - a golden opportunity that rapidly palls. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates him in a gruesome literary murder so when Petronius Longus, the over-worked vigiles enquiry chief, commissions him to investigate, Falco is forced to accept.
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Marcus Didius Falco No. VII. Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine watch and Falco's oldest friend, has finally nailed one of Rome's top criminals. Under Roman law, citizens are not imprisoned but are allowed 'time to depart' into exile outside the Empire. One dark and gloomy night, Petronius and Falco put the evil Balbinus aboard ship. But soon after, an outbreak of robbery and murder suggest a new criminal ring has moved into Balbinus' old territory. Petronis and Falco must descend into the shady underworld of Vespasian's Rome to investigate.
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Rome, AD 70. August, and it's sweltering. For Marcus Didius Falco, tough private investigator, the summer holds few prospects other than spying on the senators' faithless wives. Then Falco meets the young, beautiful Sosia Camillina when he saves her from the attention of two idiot thugs, an encounter which seems to open new horizons. Then the appearance of a stolen silver pig - a silver-bearing ingot of lead - leads Falco to a plot to overthrown Emperor Vespasian. A murder swiftly follows and Falco finds himself in Britain, disguised as a slave in order to find out how, and by whom, the ingots are smuggled.