Leila Anani's Reviews > A Comedy of Terrors

Set during Saturnalia (Christmas) Tiberius is investigating a scam putting bad nuts on the market giving people food poisoning. Flavia's client is a wife who claims her husband is cheating, gets Flavia to investigate and then help her leave him. Both cases are linked through a complex family melodrama of two criminal families trying to find a way to operate in the same city without antagonising each other....

As with a lot of Flavia novels the 'plot' is fairly weak and as crime novels go this is a very poor example. However what it does deliver is a comical depiction of Rome under Domitian during the most chaotic festival of the year. The setting and evocation of life in this period hasn't really been equalled. You are in 1st century Rome, with its smells, its quarrels and its general hustle and bustle. All the characters are engaging and the humour and wit make this as much of a delight as all Lindsey Davis' other novels.

I loved the comical ending of this one which I thought was just perfect. Not my favourite Lindsey Davis novel by any means, but fans won't be too disappointed.