With this, the twentieth and final volume in her long running Marcus Didius Falco series, Lindsey Davis closes out the adventures of the wily informer and his indomitable wife Helena Justina.
In the summer of A.D 77, during the waning days of the Emperor Vespasian, Marcus and Helena have just suffered the twin blows of losing their newborn son and Marcus' rogue of a father on the same day.
The loss of the baby is devastating; but what Falco never expected was the shock of his father's death --- nor the surprise of discovering that Geminus died a wealthy man and that he left the bulk of that wealth to his long-estranged son. Falco's not sure he knows how to handle becoming a man of property and means, with two houses in Rome, a villa by the sea, a thriving business. It's a relief to throw himself into a new case, and immerse himself in somebody else's troubles besides his own.
A respectable and successful middle-aged couple who supplied statuary to his father have disappeared under mysterious and forboding circumstances. Both were last seen headed for a confrontation with their unsavory neighbors, a family of freedmen (former Imperial slaves) who live in the fever-ridden Pontine Marshes, and seem to spend most of their time brutalizing their wives and children, intimidating their neighbors, and terrorizing the surrounding countryside.
No one will do anything about them, because it seems the freedmen Claudii have friends in very high places protecting them from the consequences of their crimes. When a corpse discovered dumped in a burial ground near Rome turns out to be the husband of Falco's missing couple, Falco and his friend Petronius of the Vigiles believe they have a potential break in the case, but their enemy Anacrites, the Imperial Chief Spy, intervenes to take over the investigation. At first Falco and Helena think Anacrites is motivated by his usual spite and jealousy of Falco and Petro, but the animus runs much deeper. Falco is further alarmed when Anacrites begins harassing his sister Maia, Petro's wife, and making up to his volatile adopted daughter Albia. He and Petro continue to work the case, with covert assistance from Silvius, an agent of the Urban Cohort, who would like to score on Anacrites in the internal political intrigues of the Imperium.
In the end, with help from an unexpected source in his own household, Falco and Petro discover the truth about the Claudii and take the action necessary to protect their families from harm. A dramatic and satisfying conclusion to the series and a hint of what may be in store for the future.
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