The latest addition to the Flavia Albia series from Lindsey Davis is a riotously chaotic and joyful read, set in Rome 89 AD amidst the mid-December Saturnalia festival celebrations, the same Saturn in mythology who ate his children. The streets and bars abound with unrestrained revellers drunk out of their skulls as the drinks flow with abandon, the inevitable throwing ups, debauchery and other filthy behaviour, pranks, insults fly, harrassment, grievous batterings, families at war, marriages in trouble, along with scheming and intrigue aplenty. There's the rituals and traditions to be carried out at home, festival decorations, presents to be given, the endless visitors and celebration feasts to be organised. There are two grieving young boys in Flavia's household, Gaius and Lucius, the nephews of her magistrate husband, Tiberius, who have come to live with them when his sister died.

The boys bond with the donkey and the newly acquired sheep, clinging to any sense of familiarity and finding joy in playing jokes. Flavia refuses to be doomed by parenthood, and has no intention of giving up her work as a private informer, although there is precious little work to be had in the holiday period, and when she does find work, it's with a finagling client where all is not as it appears. Tiberius, an upright citizen and moral man, applies the regulations to all, immune to bribery and status, a position that is to make him a target of powerful and ruthless criminal gangsters intent on taking over Rome's nut trade with their mouldy product. Any nut traders who refuse to buy their rotten nuts are murdered in grisly ways as a lesson to others. There is no way Flavia is not going to make behind the scene inquiries on the 'nutty business' to support and protect Tiberius, picking up useful information from a number of different sources in a boisterously celebrating Rome.

In this past year of Covid 19, Davis seems to be all too aware that people need some joy and to be uplifted, she provides that in spades with the comedy and hilarity to be found during Saturnalia with her fabulous cast of characters, some of whom haven't made an appearance for quite a while. This is a wonderfully irresistible, entertaining and fun murder mystery, there are grim murders, corruption, extortion, villainous criminal gangsters and racketeering, but the highlight for me were Davis's descriptions of Rome and the Saturnalia festival, seen through the eyes and experiences of Flavia, and other key characters. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC.

Read all the Falco books and enjoyed them but never really started on these. 'Such fun', as Miranda's mother would say. Combines all my reading pleasures, ancient Rome, murder and detective work. Despite the rather comedic tone, there is definitely accuracy and research in the background. I will be returning to the first Flavia Alba book now to catch up. Thank you Netgalley!

Call it what you want but the Winter silly season has cause problems since it was invented.
Christmas/Saturnalia - they both mean family squabbles, over-eating and running around buying presents.

Flavia and Tiberius may be recently wed but that won't get in the way of them solving a murder or three, investigating ancient Loan Shark organisations or interfering in the lives of their nearest and dearest. Oh and possibly annoying a vigile or two.

There are plenty of visits from Falco, Helena and the extended Didii family. I swear Postumus is either going to be the ancient version of a CSI or a serial killer LOL. There are also some references to the earlier Falco books so devoted readers like myself will get the jokes/references but newer readers won't feel too left out.

I loved their way of dealing with getting the bad guy using Sheep! Reminded my al Al Capone! I have loved this series from the start and am so enjoying this very British Roman matron's total disregard for the customs of her time. She is just too much of her adopted father's daughter!

Flavia Albia is wife to local magistrate Tiberius but a private investigator in her own right. The Roman feast of Saturnalia is in full flow and this story delves into the many practices that occur in full glory. Tiberius is involved in a case of local gangsters and a turf war coming starting with a local currency Nuts. Flavia is hired to help a wife escape her gangster husband but all is not clear. This is story following the high jinks of Roman family life intertwined with murder. It combines the witty characters Flavia encounters on a daily basis and how she is the silent investigator behind her husband. You will find the relationship between master and slave is blurred at the time of Saturnalia. It would be well worth checking out other stories about this very engaging family.
I was given an arc of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

tl;dr – Classic Albia / Falco, for good and maybe occasionally for ill (it’s almost entirely for good). It’s a chaotic, good-hearted and slightly overstuffed Christm- I mean, Saturnalia romp that happens to feature some grisly murders and maybe a long-term throughline for subsequent books. If you have to niggle, it maybe works a bit too hard to tie all the threads tightly together, but there are some genuinely clever plot flourishes mixed in with the obligatory series call-backs and holiday madness. Quite a good nut.

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From the get-go, it’s clear this is meant to be a companion to the late-Falco-era novel Saturnalia. Perhaps there's a bit less tea-family squabbling and a bit more gangland intrigue, but it bears the same drink-fuelled, slightly soapy story DNA as the original. And between obsessive dwarves, nut fights, lesbian gladiatrices, at-least-two-timing boyfriends, anachronistic jokes, leopard mummies, lots of wine and a whole host of minor recurring characters from waaaaay back in the series (Veleda! Zoilus!), it’s clear Davis is having a lot of fun with this one.

Now, fun isn’t a complete departure for the Flavia Albia series, but it does run against the grain of the often-dour earlier books like. Graveyard of the Hesperides and Enemies at Home, and it’s a welcome lift in a year we all need a little colour and happy chaos. Obviously, there’s actual darkness afoot — it’s a murder mystery, after all, and life and death on the Aventine remain grubby and cheap — but it’s a level of darkness that complements the ambiguous Roman holiday of misrule rather than offsetting it.

What’s also welcome is a hint of an overall direction for future Albia books, with an ending that leaves a few plot lines tantalisingly unresolved and maybe dangles an arch-nemesis for Albia and Tiberius to vie against. Between the (possible) big villains, the impending end of Tiberius’ time as aedile and the speed with which our heroes have Katamari-ed up a complete domestic household, I also get the sense the series might be heading for some kind of denouement before too much longer, but if so, it’s going out near a high and not right away.

To provide a brief critical note, the central mystery could be seen as a little over-tidy, with very little on the page that doesn’t somehow fit in to the overall puzzle. And like almost every Falco/Albia book, it’s reliant on some improbable coincidences to move the main story forward at the same time as the B, C, D (and E) plots before they inevitably fold back into the main narrative. On the other hand, if these things really bothered you, you wouldn’t be reading this far, and the way threads like Sheep’s or Spendo’s are tied up were genuinely unexpected even after all these years, it’s remarkably sprightly for a series’ 29th entry, and that bodes very well for books to come. Io Saturnalia, indeed.