There’s a murderer on the loose in Rome but not just any old garden variety psycho, this guy themes his kills to a theatrical bent, bringing to reality some of the most gruesome Grecian tragedies. A connection to Flavia’s father asks her to investigate as Falco is conveniently out of town. I have to say is wasn’t blown away by this one, Davis is always solid but I didn’t find myself particularly gripped. Flavia is pretty isolated this go round, we didn’t get much of her household which I missed. Hardly any Dromo drama. The murders are very grim so this one was pretty dark and there wasn’t much witty bants to lighten it up. However average Davis is still a pretty high bar all over.

Enjoyable female detective story set in Ancient Rome. Great heroine and some gruesome murders to solve.

This was the usual good fun that I have come to expect from Lindsey Davis' cast of characters. I am not up to speed with the Flavia Alba series but have read all the Falco books so have a certain amount of family background knowledge. These historical detective/crime stories set in ancient Rome always have the right amount of mystery, fun and proper historical fact. Thanks to Netgalley.

I'm a big fan of this entertaining series of books that have given us some great detective stories which, while set in ancient Rome, feel as real as something happening today. Lindsey Davis' characters are relatable, they draw you into their world and almost manage to close the gap between the 1st and 21st centuries. Beliefs and behaviours may change over time but as these stories of corruption, cruelty, revenge, and deceit reveal, human nature stays much the same.
This story seemed darker than others and it is extremely graphic and gory in parts, but Flavia Albia's likeable, clever and strong lead character, ensures this is another entertaining and devilishly clever tale told with humour, wit and intelligence.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Flavia Albia is back in action. The rebellious Roman Matron is about to get involved with some old Actor and Playwright "friends" of her parents. They were trouble back then, how much trouble could they get her into now?

Flavia and Tiberius are a brilliant couple. He just gets on with life, subtly supporting his wife in her Informer duties and dreaming of his building work.

Davos believes that someone has it in for his company, a serial killer is clearly making a production of knocking off his companions. Her employer quickly becomes the first victim and now she feels obliged to find the killer.

The Vigiles aren't exactly welcoming of her help, so in true Didius style, she just sticks her nose in anyway!

Murder Mystery and History blend seamlessly with Albia dealing with her newly married quibbles and enveloping traumatised children into their new home. When the villain is finally revealed they certainly have a grand entrance!

Flavia Albia , daughter of Marcus Didius Falco , has taken over her father's business as an 'Informer' .
Whilst she has tried to stay away from the brutal and political cases she does not always find she can turn the down .
This time her commission is to discover who is staging brutal murders , each one different to the last .
The only clue so far is the dying whisper of a victim " the undertaker did it ! "
With the Authorities determined to sweep the deaths under the carpet - how many more deaths must occur before before Flavia can resolve the case ? Her own family might be at risk !

This is yet another enjoyable murder , mystery featuring Flavia Albia , set in Rome with all the politics and mores of the times at play

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Flavia and Ancient Rome are brought to life in this latest novel by Lindsey Davis. Full of twists and turns .

Another gripping and entertaining historical mystery by Lindsey Davis. Flavia Alba is an excellent detective and I thoroughly enjoyed this complex story that kept me hooked.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

First Century Rome. Davos, an old friend of Falco is looking for him hoping he can investigate the disappearance of fellow theatre manager Chremes. But it is Flavia Albia who is available and soon it becomes a murder investigation. In this she is helped by Mucius of the Seventh Vigiles. Then another body is discovered. But no motive can be shown though there seems to be enough possible suspects.
Another entertaining, well-plotted and well-written historical mystery with its very likeable and interesting characters. Another good addition to the series which can easily be read as a standalone story.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley for an honest review.

This is another highly entertaining journey at breakneck speed through Ancient Rome ,in the company of Flavia Albia,as she investigates a particularly gory set of murders in the world of the theatre.As always, she’s great fun as a character ,with her witty asides and opinions, and the author’s knowledge of the ancient world is quite astounding and brings it to life in the most wonderful way. There’s less here about her family life and more about the customs of the Roman theatre,which I found extremely interesting .
All in all a fun and interesting read which moves along at a cracking pace.I’m already looking forward to the next adventure!
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.

Flavia Albia following in her father’s Falco footsteps in Ancient Rome investigates the most theatrical gruesome deaths imaginable. You are drawn into the world of Rome with its everyday life and social structure. A play within a play brings terror and revenge to touring theatre players back in Rome after many years.
An exciting story that keeps going at a breathtaking speed with a central character that will certainly hold your interest.
I was given an arc of this book by Netgalley and the publisher Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review.

The 10th book in the Flavia Alba series, and although these books give fascinating details about Ancient Rome, this one does seem rather awash with blood and gore.
Flavia takes on a murder case that involves a travelling troupe of theatre players, that are well know to her father, Falco. He is away on holiday, she needs the money, and wants to show Falco, how her private informer/ investigator skills are progressing. Alba really gets more than she has bargained for, in the shape of particularly gruesome macabre deaths on stage, in the new Amphitheatres springing up around Rome and the provinces. Travelling players go around the country re enacting Greek Tragedies, that occasionally are used to stage public executions.
When Chremes and his wife Phrygia are brutally murdered, within hours of each other, Alba is determined to seek a particularly deranged killer, who may also have his eyes turned upon Alba and her family.
The details of Roman life is excellent, and the life of an actor was as precarious then, as nowadays. There are many bloody, gruesome deaths, but the descriptions of costumes, the tragedies, the Amphitheatres and props used were fascinating to read, but, Rome was barbaric, bloated with vice and corruption, life was cheap and conditions disgusting for the slaves and lower classes. If you read about some of the early Caesars, how did they, with those morals, claim to have been a civilised society?
This novel is darker than others I have read and enjoyed. I do hope inspiration has not run out in favour of sensationalism, this book seems undecided in which direction and audience it is going to appeal to.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers Hodder and Stoughton, for my digital copy in exchange for my honest, unsolicited review. I have rated this as four stars, an uneasy read.
I will leave reviews to Goodreads and Amazon when page is open.

From the title on down, Desperate Undertaking wants to live on an airport serial-killer-thriller rack, and that’s probably a good thing. The Flavia Albia books have become progressively darker in recent outings — The Grove of the Caesars flirts with grotty true crime, and A Comedy of Terrors fits some properly grim killings into its Basically-Pagan-Christmas tableaux — but this is probably the first Flavia book whose theatrical touchstone is Grand Guignol and not Shakespeare gags.

Of course, this is still a unsolved-murders saga for the whole family, so most of the actual violence is left tastefully off stage in favour of grisly aftermaths, very much in the style of Greek tragedy. The book's copious theatrical bloodshed is similarly rooted in the actual Roman practice of (occasionally) using plays as public executions, and like the real spectacle the result is worryingly entertaining, even if the Saw-like tone is a bit of a departure from earlier, arguably more grounded Flavia books.

Even as it heads off in new directions, Desperate Undertaking is also more backward-looking than past Albia outings, with its plot connecting directly through to Falco’s farcical Syrian adventures in Last Act in Palmyra. For one of the weaker Falco books, Last Act has become curiously central to Davis’ later writing, and although she’s already revisited its strongest parts — Thalia's larger-than-life snake charmer, Falco’s faux-Hamlet play — there’s enough nostalgia value to justify going back one more time. Fortunately It’s not necessary to have read Palmyra to enjoy this outing, and it’s probably best if you don’t remember too many of the details lest the (admittedly thin) whodunit aspect of Desperate Undertaking unwind itself immediately.

Undertaking is a potboiler at heart anyways, and its main interest is less in careful deduction and much more in building a satisfying loop of stagily-planned murders, growing tension, and fast-paced chases through famous monuments. And in this respect it succeeds quite admirably: Davis has thriller mechanics down pat, kicking off the action right in the aftermath of the first killing and briskly moving from set piece to set piece with no more than the (admittedly substantial) exposition necessary for a series on its thirtieth installment. Despite that long history, Davis raises the stakes enough that a few encounters — an incident involving an aedile’s ring, an ominous showdown in the colonnades of the Saepta — made me wonder if she was going to take a knife to the real fabric of the series and not just the usual red shirts.

It's a relief that she ultimately stays her hand, but it's interesting to speculate where the series could possibly go from here, especially now that it has wandered so far from its lonely-informer roots: are we going even grimmer (is Romano-Scandi a thing?), back into the carnivalesque, to the light detective camp of many middle Falcos, politics, properly out of Rome, or into something else entirely? Hopefully somewhere equally entertaining at the very least..

I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of Desperate Undertaking, the tenth novel to feature Flavia Albia, an informer in Ancient Rome.

An old friend of Falco comes looking for him to solve the gruesome murder of his friend, the actor Chremes, but Falco is out of town. Albia accepts the commission but has hardly started when she finds Chremes’s wife, Phrygia, near death after a brutal attack. Phrygia manages to identify her killer as “the undertaker” and so starts the hunt for a brutal serial killer with a grudge against the acting community.

I thoroughly enjoyed Desperate Undertaking, which is another fun adventure in Ancient Rome. The novel is told from Flavia Albia’s first person point of view, so it is coloured by her jaundiced and sardonic take on Rome and its citizens. She is not a woman who is inclined to see the best in people and is thus never disappointed. Nevertheless her voice makes me laugh and brings her milieu alive with her comments on her fellow Romans.

The plot is wild with its imaginative and extremely violent murders. I’m not going to say what they are because that would spoil the fun, but gobsmacking hardly covers them. My jaw dropped exponentially as the novel progressed. It also moves along at a fast pace with Albia, as she prefers to be called, trying to get information out of the notoriously tight lipped or outright lying central characters before more people are killed. It gives the novel a certain air of urgency but no tension, as there is never any doubt that she will prevail. It’s a fun romp.

I like the setting, as the author brings Ancient Rome to life, be it the geographical descriptions and potted history, the depiction of everyday life or the corrupt politics, so the novel teems with humanity and life.

Desperate Undertaking is a fun read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

Flavia Albia has big shoes to fill, following her adoptive father into his profession as a private informer. When an old friend of his comes looking for help, Flavia is determined to get the case sorted before her parents get back from their trip. As the case gets bloodier, Flavia, with or without any help, is determined she will succeed, even if she becomes a target herself.

Falco is a hard act to follow, but this new adventure for his adopted daughter shows just how much her character, determination and expertise is developing. Rome at this time is barbaric, bloodthirsty and devious, and we get the sense of this really well through the authors well researched writing. There is a lovely sense of humour that threads itself through the story, which is needed at times as there are some really blood thirsty scenes. It feels so authentic you can almost smell the carnage. This had me from the first page, another book I didn’t want to end.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Another excellent offering from Lindsey Davis, I was hooked from the first page. The descriptions of ancient Rome are so vivid, I can almost smell the filthy streets! I love how Flavia Albia is growing into her role and out of Falco's shadow. Highly recommend.

We return to Ancient Rome in Lindsey Davis's latest addition to her Private Informer Flavia Albia series and it is a real humdinger. Flavia and her aedile husband, Tiberius, are at her father's auction house at Saeptia Julia, Falco and Helena are out of the city, when Davos, with his links to a acting theatre troupe, arrives asking for Falco's help. He reluctantly eventually accepts Flavia's services, she needs the money, as she takes on a nightmare investigation featuring a unhinged serial killer creating scenes from plays of macabre deaths on stage in theatre productions. Her morning turns out to be a traumatic affair as she first visits the scene of the crucification of Chremes, which is later followed by the horror of the blood sodden murder of his wife, Phrygia, gored by a dangerous bull whilst trapped in a fake cow, her final words make little sense as she points the finger to a undertaker as the killer. The couple ran a professional acting troupe that staged plays.

The killings suggest a personal hatred of Chremes and Phrygia, therefore it seems likely the killer is to be found within acting circles. This has Flavia looking into members of the theatre troupe itself and The Farcicals, a amateur group of actors that were going to perform with them, but were then pushed out by Phrygia. Flavia finds herself working with a reasonably competent vigilis, Mucius, although he is bound by politics and his incompetent boss, the tribune. With nothing in the way of any leads, it soon becomes clear that the killer is far from finished as further murders take place, including one after a funeral with dramatic performances. When a break in at the auction house suggests that Flavia herself is a target and in danger, Mucius acts to protect her by assigning her two bodyguards, men who just happen to be culturally knowledgeable.

This case proves to be one of the worse Flavia has ever undertaken, and it is to test her to the limits of her capabilities. Additionally, she does not take into account her changed family situation and her responsiblities to two anxious and traumatised children who do not take well to her absence from their home. Her husband, Tiberius is planning to move out of politics and give up his position as an aedile, with a view to working full time as a building contractor. This is a wonderful addition to a brilliant historical series, it has Davis's trademark comedic humour and great characterisations, particularly that of the villainous killer. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

This book is well written with a compelling storyline, well developed characters and a vividly described setting full of rich imagery. It was twisty, unpredictable and witty. I couldn't put it down, I really enjoyed it.