The Ides of April

By: Lindsey Davis

Narrated by: Lucy Brown

Flavia Albia is the adopted daughter of a famous investigating family. In defiance of tradition, she lives alone on the colourful Aventine Hill, and battles out a solo career in a male-dominated world. As a woman and an outsider, Albia has special insight into the best, and worst, of life in ancient Rome.


A female client dies in mysterious circumstances. Albia investigates and discovers there have been many other strange deaths all over the city, yet she is warned off by the authorities. The vigils are incompetent. The local magistrate is otherwise engaged, organising the Games of Ceres, notorious for its ancient fox-burning ritual. Even Albia herself is preoccupied with a new love affair: Andronicus, an attractive archivist, offers all that a love-starved young widow can want, even though she knows better than to take him home to meet the parents...


As the festival progresses, her neighbourhood descends into mayhem and becomes the heartless killer's territory. While Albia and her allies search for him, he stalks them through familiar byways and brings murder ever closer to home.


The Ides of April is vintage Lindsey Davis, offering wit, intrigue, action and a brilliant new heroine who promises to be as celebrated as Marcus Didius Falco and Helena Justina, her fictional predecessors.


(P)2013 Hodder & Stoughton©2013 Lindsey Davis

Critic reviews

Praise for MASTER AND GOD:

'The narrative is rapid and the story well told with much sharp-edged detail. You can open this book and step right into a convincing yet extraordinary past.'

'Davis's descriptions of Rome are vivid and lively...this is a great yarn'

'While this book is a departure from her usual Falco novels, the trademark charm, piercing intelligence and ready wit are as abundant as ever... dramatic and enthralling, all the more so for being full of historical fact. The characters are intriguing and three-dimensional, and the whole is told with a humour and insight which means the reader will find the book impossible to put down.'

Enjoyable listen

Fun story well narrated. All the usual social detail we’ve come to expect from Davis. A dash of romance to spice it up. I like the character and thought it good that while she drops by now and then to visit her parents they don’t intrude into what is her story. While well narrated I’d have preferred Alba, who grew up in the streets of Londinium up to age 15, to have a more Latin as a second language tint to her accent. She’d presumably have spoken a Celtic language as her first language even if she’d picked up some childhood Latin. This narrator did her like a patrician lady. Not sure arriving in Rome at 15 she’d have got that even with Helena Justina as her model. Minor grumble from a linguist. I love Christian Rodska’s portrayal of Falco as a wide boy of Rome and think of alba as inheriting her father’s guile and style so the accent felt a bit off. Anyway. Eager to follow the adventures of Alba either way.

Are women really that stupid?

The lead character is dumb. She couldn't think her way out of a paper bag. The climax of the story made no sense. I have read some of this authors Falco mysteries and they are much better than this one.