Three Hands In The Fountain - Softcover

Davis, Lindsey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099799510 ISBN 13: 9780099799511

Publisher: Arrow, 1998

Synopsis

paperback, fine In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

About this title

About the Author:

LINDSEY DAVIS has written nineteen novels, beginning with The Course of Honour, the love story of the Emperor Vespasian and Antonia Caenis. Her bestselling mystery series features laid-back First Century detective Marcus Didius Falco and his partner Helena Justina, plus friends, relations, pets and bitter enemy the Chief Spy. Her books are translated into many languages and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Past Chair of the Crimewriters' Association and a Vice President of the Classical Association, she has won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Dagger in the Library, and a Sherlock award for Falco as Best Comic Detective. She was born in Birmingham but now lives in London.

From Kirkus Reviews:

It's the reign of Emperor Vespasian in first century Rome, and informer/spy/p.i. Marcus Didius Falco (Time to Depart, 1997, etc.) has taken a partnerlongtime friend Petronius Longus, dismissed from Rome's Fourth Cohort unit of police; living apart from wife Silvia; and infatuated with Milvia, wife of gangster Florius. (Falco, meanwhile, is happy with his loving, clever Helena and their baby daughter.) The new partners are by the Tailor Lane water fountain one day when a human hand is found by a worker. It soon develops that various body parts, all female, have been turning up in the aqueduct system over a period of time, always after one of Rome's frequent festivals. The Curator of Aqueducts is now taking the matter seriously, putting it in the hands of his Chief Spy Anacrites (anathema to Falco), assistant engineer Bolanus, and ex-consul Julius Frontinus, just appointed to the governorship of Britain. The third hand to surface wears a ring, and before long an identification is made: the victim was Asinia, wife of Caius Cicurrus, who never arrived home after attending one of the Festival Games. It becomes apparent to the investigating team that what's happening must have its origins in the countryside and hills outside Rome where the Aqueducts are fed. Falco makes extensive forays into the area, looking for those citizens who frequent Rome at Festival times, but it takes the disappearance of Claudia, fiance of Helena's brother, to send Falco on a last journey to the countrysideand to a final confrontation with a killer. Falco, less of a wise-guy in this outing, is mellowing with his new family. The puzzle and its resolution are only marginally convincing, but the evocation of ancient Romealmost street by streetshould prove a treasure to readers interested in the era. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0099799510
• ISBN 13: 9780099799511
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352