Saturnalia Errors

When Flavia Alba takes her 2 young nephews shopping for Saturnalia gifts, she finds the vendor stabbed to death in his tenement. The boys are full of their adventure but Flavia wants to investigate and returns to the crime scene, where the murder victim has disappeared. Apparently, it was a Saturnalia joke and the dead man is getting drunk in the pub with his brother. She feels a bit stupid but is further happy that no harm is done. Business is slow during the festivities but it will pick up once they’re over, she’s assured by a colleague. A woman with marital problems also comes for advice and Flavia aids her in every possible way she can. Her husband Tiberius Manlius (aided by Titus Morellus of the 4th cohort) is investigating one of his last cases; the local nut sellers are being forced to buy their products from a new wholesale cartel with very aggressive sales tactics and bad or mouldy products. With not much else to do, Flavia hears interesting things that may be connected to her husband’s case, she starts to meddle there as well.


I was really happy to find a series that takes places in Rome towards the end of the 1st century. After all, the Roman Empire had a huge influence on the shape, laws and customs of modern-day Europe and the rest of the Western civilisation. A mystery set in those days intrigued me from the start. Thank you to my GR friend Paromjit who pointed it out to me.
What is not to like about Flavia? She's far from perfect and will be the first one to admit this. She’s a breath of fresh air and adorable as well. Born in Britain, she lost her parents during the Boudicca uprising and ended up in Rome where she was exploited and abused by some very nasty and cruel individuals. She was noticed and later adopted by Falco and Helena her new parents and things started to look a bit better for her. She works as an informer, a term that covers the whole scheme of private detective work from simple background checks over finding missing relatives to solving crimes and murder. She learned that trade from her dad Falco but no-one has ever heard of a successful female PI. Until now, that is. She’s a level headed and logical young woman that suffers no fools.
Her husband is an aedile in charge of weights and measurements band the quality of goods that are offered for sale. He’s widely known as a stickler to the rules who crosses all t’s and dots every I.
The title may mislead you into thinking it is a comedy but it is historical crime fiction that has its funny moments, a lot of them in connection with the festive season. There are plenty of funny one-liners that may raise a few smiles as well, especially those incidents where you think “that could happen today”. The book is also sprinkled with all sort of interesting facts about life in that day and age.
There’s an extensive cast of characters and some clever person did the right thing and put the list of their names at, the beginning of the book! Maybe they heard my usual complaint as to why so many publishers put those lists at the end of an e-book, which is totally unpractical. One thing that I would have liked to see in this book is a map of Rome at the time as there are a lot of references to streets and other geographical places.
Then there’s the topic of slavery. As I understand it, Flavia and Tiberius are very liberal and tolerant in the treatment of their slaves and try to educate them for a life in freedom. I don’t think that was the general practice but I do believe that most house slaves were treated in an acceptable, humane manner. After all, they were expensive to replace. There was a hierarchy between the slaves as well. No, I don’t think that slavery is an acceptable institution but at the time, this was standard practice, not just in Rome but almost everywhere in the world there existed a form of slavery. We do have to look at it with the eyes of the period. Things were what they were. But I do wonder if we must look at the modern Italians and ask repair for the countless people of West European countries that were stolen and sold into slavery? I think it best to leave the past where it belongs; in history. As no-one alive today suffered this injustice (not included the victims of IS and other religious nutcases or those of human trafficking) we should look forward to the future instead of wallowing about the past historical crimes that everybody acknowledges as being wrong.
Life in the first century posed many of the same problems, vices and crimes we know today; greed, adultery, organised crime families, unpaid debts and collecting them, … And there is the Saturnalia festival that has eerie similarities to our Christmas period in its customs and significance; greenery decorations, family reunions, gifts for the children, large meals, oil lamps and candles to illuminate the festivities (and cause a fire hazard) ... So, humanity hasn’t changed very much in the last 2000 years and that may well be the forte of this series
Even though this is the 8th book in this series, I had no problems with the story. Explanation about certain situations and people were given where necessary. Some of the hints about Flavia’s history piqued my interest to read the earlier books as well. There’s a long, slow introduction that gets you acquainted with all the characters and some of their history. Some of the events seem irrelevant but later on, in the book, those seemingly uninteresting encounters and observations turn out to be very valuable after all. It’s very cleverly put together. It definitely is a series that deserves more attention.

I must thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the free ARCC they provided and this is my honest, unbiased review of it.