Author:Lindsey Davis

‘We should have time to manage it … and still get back to the party before the wine runs out.’
It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short; the nights are for wild parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. The logistics go wrong; she acquires a mystery illness – then a young man is horrendously murdered and she escapes from house arrest.
Falco is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites, in a race to find the fugitive before her presence angers the public and makes the government look stupid. Falco has other priorities, for Helena’s brother Justinus has also vanished. Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule, the search seems impossible and only Falco seems to notice that some dark agency is bringing death to the city streets…
Like visiting old friends in a familiar and endearing, if sometimes bizarre, environment. Jokes and skulduggery crowd the pages
—— GuardianEvery book in this series is a delight... fans will snap it up. Highly recommended
—— Library JournalFalco wisecracks his way through the empire's sleazy underside...Davis' crimes are wickedly convoluted - real fun
—— Time MagazineOne of the best in this series, a nice mix of wit and wisecracks
—— Literary ReviewRome is vividly brought to life - alien yet curiously familiar. And the story gallops along at a tremendous pace with humour and suspense dispensed in equal measure. Saturnalia is another rollicking good yarn
—— Daily ExpressWit, excitement and surprises in ancient Rome
—— Woman & HomeAnother entertaining adventure
—— Sunday TelegraphFalco wisecracks his way through the empire's sleazy underside . . . Davis' crimes are wickedly convoluted - real fun
—— Time MagazineAt every turn, Udall plays with his readers' expectations of believers and non-believers, husbands and wives...That this longish book is kept largely aloft by a structure of humorous conceits is an indication of the author's strengths as a storyteller.
—— Emma Hagestadt , IndependentIrving writes with clarity and compassion about the Aids epidemic: his forensic detailing of this merciless disease is deeply affecting
—— Irish TimesCrammed with Irving's signature cleverness
—— The ScotsmanThis tender exploration of nascent desire, of love and loss, manages to be sweeping, brilliant, political, provocative, tragic and funny - it is precisely the kind of astonishing alchemy we associate with a John Irving novel. A profound truth is arrived at in these pages. It is Irving at his most daring, at his most ambitious. It is America and American writing, both at their very best
—— Abraham VergheseIn One Person is a novel that makes you proud to be human. It is a book that not only accepts but also loves our differences. From the beginning of his career Irving has always cherished our peculiarities - in a fierce, not a saccharine way. Now he has extended his sympathies - and ours - still further into areas that even the misfits eschew. John Irving in this magnificent novel - his best and most passionate since The World According to Garp - has sacralized what lies between polarizing genders and orientations. And have I mentioned it is also a gripping page-turner and a beautifully constructed work of art?
—— Edmund WhiteA quietly compelling and provocative work
—— Sunday Business PostA dark and sinewy novel, written with sparse clarity and affecting subtlety
—— Stuart Evers , Observer Books of the YearIn a year marked by epics, it's a relief to delve into this quiet, surprisingly tense debut novel - small enough to stuff in a stocking but packing a huge emotional punch
—— Entertainment WeeklyA novel of subtle beauty and quiet grace; I found myself hanging on every simple word, as tense about the consequences of a man finding an apartment as if I were reading about a man defusing a bomb. ... It is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. ... With elegant restraint, Baxter layers the narratives, anecdotes and experiences in the manner of life as continuous essay, the topic of which might be stated as, "What is a right way to be in the world?" ... It is very much to Baxter's credit that he presents this struggle as if it were thriller, love story, philosophical novel and dark comedy combined, in a novel not liek a bullet but like an arrow flying straight to the heart of the matter.
—— New York Times Book ReviewA quiet and powerful read through and through. Baxter's clean and direct prose generates its own momentum. He chooses not to create a tidy drama where characters are explained by their pasts. Rather, he creates something bigger and more true.
—— Daily BeastCompelling ... captures the mood of the current moment and what seems to be a new "lost generation", one formed not so much by exposure to violence, as immunity to and alienation from it. Once upon a time, there was no place like home; in Mr. Baxter's world, home, it seems, is no place.
—— New York TimesAbsorbing, atmospheric and enigmatic ... With its disorienting juxtaposition of the absolutely ordinary and the strange and vaguely threatening, the novel evokes the work of Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami, while its oblique explorations of memory suggest a debt to W.G. Sebald
—— Los Angeles TimesA thrilling follow-up to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island...Silver is a novel that will appeal to readers of all ages. Beautifully written and genuinely exciting...Best of all, Motion’s novel stays true to Stevenson’s original tale while adding an extra dimension.
—— Emma Lee-Potter , Daily ExpressElegant, thrilling sequel...The plot is gripping, a mixture of high adventure, low cunning and desperation...Motion’s prose vivid and glowingly poetic, is a brilliant counterpoint to the fascinating action.
—— Eithne Farry , Daily MailThis is a pacey tale with an appropriately feisty young heroine for modern readers
—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on SundayAndrew Motion brings lyricism but, more importantly, rollicking adventure to this sequel to Treasure Island
—— Mail on Sunday






