the silver pigs – A Keyboard and an Open Mind

Title: The Silver Pigs (Marcus Didius Falco #1)
Author: Lindsey Davis
Genre: Historical fiction/mystery
Audio book narrator: Christian Rodska
Date Read: 28/08/2016 – 31/08/2016
Rating: ★★★☆

Review:

This book was a great deal of fun! It was recommended to me by a colleague who thought I’d like it, and I’m really glad I picked it up.

M. Didius Falco is a private informer in Rome in 73 AD. When he intercepts a young girl running for her life in the forum one morning, little does he know that this will result in him being hired to flush out a smuggling ring stretching all the way from Rome to Britain, and almost right up to the Emperor.

The ancient Roman setting for this book was a lot of fun, and as far as I could tell, thoroughly researched. While there were quite a few times when I thought some of the language felt a bit anachronistic, in most cases, I didn’t actually know enough about Rome to be sure, so I let it go.

Falco is a great character. At first I thought he was going to be gross and sleazy, but I soon realised he was actually pretty charming (with occasional sleaze). He’s full of witty comebacks and lots of sarcasm, which is how I like my humour. He meets his match in Helena Justina, the daughter of the Senator who employs him. Their banter was my favourite thing about the book. I don’t use this phrase very often in book reviews, but I shipped them really hard.

The mystery itself wasn’t really that compelling, and to be honest when the characters were discussing the smuggling system I did zone out a bit. But the book was short, and Christian Rodska’s narration fitted the book to a tee, so I kept listening. I’ll definitely be picking up the second book in the series sometime soon!

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This is a blog hop hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for today, and just answer the three questions.

What are you currently reading?

My main focus at the moment is Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2) by Rachel Caine. It is doing that middle-book-in-a-trilogy thing of being well-written and easy to read even though nothing much is happening. I really enjoy the world it’s set in, though, so I’m okay with that.

On audio, I have started The Collector by John Fowles. This book came up in conversation at work a little while ago and I thought it sounded delightfully disturbing, so when I saw the audio book available, I grabbed it.

What did you recently finish reading?

I finally finished the audio book of Votive by Karen Brooks. I still enjoyed some parts of the story, but I felt it was too long and had too many POV characters. My review is here. I do want to see the series through, but I’ve decided I’m going to read the third book rather than listen to it. It’s much easier to skim the boring parts of a print book than one you listen to.

I followed that up with The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis, which I also listened to. This is the first in the Marcus Didius Falco series, a series of crime novels set in ancient Rome. It was light-hearted and fun, and exactly what I needed after a dense historical fantasy!

I also posted my review of This Savage Song by V. E. Schwab.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Once I’ve returned Paper and Fire to the library, I need to get back to The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley so I can get my review of that up before publication, and The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, which I have on loan from a friend.