Publisher's Weekly Review
Davis's superior 10th whodunit featuring private inquiry agent Flavia Albia (after 2021's A Comedy of Terrors) combines an engrossing plot with a plausible evocation of life in ancient Rome. In 89 CE, Davos, an actor friend of Flavia's adoptive parents, Marcus Didius Falco and Helena Falco, seeks their help probing the murder of Chremes, an actor-manager who also knew the older Falcos, who was "stripped naked and hung up to die on a cross" in one of Emperor Domitian's stadiums. The emperor had modified performances of a popular drama so that the lead role--a bandit--would be played by a condemned criminal, enabling the execution by crucifixion at the end to be real. Outside the arena where Chremes was found, someone had posted a fake notice advertising the dead man's upcoming appearance in the play as a means of getting passersby to enter and view the grim tableau. Meanwhile, Flavia has another bizarre murder to solve--a woman gored to death by a bull who identified "the undertaker" as her killer just before expiring. The tension is sustained throughout, and the mystery of the murders satisfactorily explained. This entry reinforces Davis's place at the top of the Ancient Roman historical subgenre. (July)
Kirkus Review
The thespians of ancient Rome are terrorized by a serial killer with a flair for the theatrical. The piquant 10th case for Flavia Alba begins with a brutal bang, as the intrepid sleuth cradles Phrygia, a dying woman who's been mauled by Buculus the bull at the Theatre of Balbus; when asked who'd set her up, the woman declares that she was killed by "the undertaker." The story then flashes back to another murder at the theater, that of Chremes, an actor/manager who was hung naked and left to die on a cross earlier that same day. Though Flavia's husband, Tiberius, is a stalwart sidekick, she craves the insights of her father, Marcus Didius Falco, the veteran investigator who anchored Davis' other long-running series, who's fled the city for some R & R with wife Helena after the boisterous festivities of the Saturnalia. Investigating Chremes' death, Flavia questions all the theater folk, including Chremes' wife, Phrygia, whose bizarre death at the horns of Buculus the bull will soon occur. The circle of colorful suspects is large, but many have alibis, and none seems to have a connection to an undertaker. The complexity of the crimes leads Flavia to hypothesize multiple killers with serious grudges. The anxieties an impending production of Oedipus Rex triggers among the company are amplified by the death of a leading actor and his driver. Flavia's first-person narration is refreshingly wry and pointed. Davis helpfully provides armchair sleuths with a complete cast of characters and detailed maps. A brisk and tidy mystery studded with humor and interesting historic detail. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this tenth Flavia Albia novel (after A Comedy of Terrors, 2021), a psychopath is leaving bodies of brutally murdered victims staged in prominent places around Rome. The first two were the beloved leaders of a traveling theatrical troupe. Actors in the ancient world were considered social outlaws, along with gladiators and brothel workers, but, even so, Flavia is hard pressed to figure out what they might have done to deserve their gruesome ends. Armed only with her determination and her "crazy British druid stare," she descends into the demimonde of the theater world--such as it was in 89 CE. She warns: "Never assume that actors are the only people who can act." This is her most dangerous investigation so far, but as the body count increases, help comes in the form of two young vigiles (firefighters and watchmen), Milo and Hilo, who brighten an unusually dark tale. This provides a fascinating look at classical drama that leaves readers with a whole new level of understanding.
Library Journal Review
In The Paper Caper, Carlisle's latest "Bibliophile Mystery," murder transpires at the first annual Mark Twain Festival, held by Brooklyn Wainwright at her bookstore and underwritten by media magnate Joseph Cabot. In Castillo's The Hidden One, Amish elders turn to Painters Mill chief of police Kate Burkholder when the remains of a long-vanished bishop are discovered, bearing evidence of foul play (150,000-copy first printing). Private informer Flavia Albia's next Desperate Undertaking is finding a serial killer (or killers) committing brutal murder and staging the corpses around Davis's first-century CE Rome (30,000-copy first printing). In Hokuloa Road, cross genre-writing, Shirley Jackson Award-winning Hand makes Grady Kendall caretaker of a luxury property in Hawaii (as far as possible from his native Maine), then has him hunting for a young woman from his flight who has since vanished (30,000-copy first printing). In McCall Smith's The Sweet Remnants of Summer, Isabel Dalhousie is serving on an advisory committee for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery when she is caught up in the squabbles of a prominent family where Nationalist vs. Socialist ideologies prevail. In Peril at the Exposition, a follow-up to March's Edgar finalist debut, Murder in Old Bombay, newlyweds Capt. Jim Agnihotri and Diana Framji have left British-ruled Bombay (now Mumbai) for 1890s Boston when Jim is sent to investigate a murder in Chicago (50,000-copy first printing). In Munier's The Wedding Plot, Mercy's grandmother Patience is set to marry her longtime beloved at the five-star Lady's Slipper Inn when family enmities bubble to the surface, the inn's spa director vanishes, and a stranger turns up dead (30,000-copy first printing). In An Honest Living--a debut from Murphy, editor in chief of CrimeReads, Literary Hub's crime fiction vertical--an attorney picking up odd jobs after walking out on his stranglehold law firm agrees to help reclusive literati Anna Reddick find her possibly thieving bookseller husband, and all's well until the real Anna Reddick walks in. In Rosenfelt's Holy Chow, an older woman who adopts sweet senior chow mix Tessie from Andy Carpenter's Tara Foundation makes Andy promise that if she dies he will take care of Tessie provided that her son cannot--which he certainly can't when he is arrested days later on suspicion of his mother's murder (60,000-copy first printing).
