Calling all Lyndsay Davis/Falco Fans

Cafe Society
1

I dont know if there are any Dopers who are fans of the Falco series so this could be a total washout.

I’ve enjoyed all of the series over the years but IMO the series which is supposed to be thrillers in a historical setting has degenerated into Chic Lit.

To me the hero,an ancient Roman detective is coming across now as a pussy whipped wimp who cant even leave home without either being laced to his wife or have her permission.

We’re hearing all the details about their lovable children even to the point of their being unable to sleep on their own and jumping unasked into their parents bed.
Something that I not only find sickly sweet in a MURDER mystery for gods sake,but something that I think highly unlikely for upper class Roman parents to tolerate.

The heros wife is a paragon,beautiful,wise,sexy,well read she’s perfect!
While the stupid male hero is bumbling around she always has the right answer to the problem,shes an ace diplomat,they never argue ever,she doesn’t fart,fib or flert.

The hero spends quite a bit of time every so often agonising over how his wife is too good for him(But is never worried that other men might think the same thing and try it on) something I personally find a trifle bizarre,oh and their sex life is perfect.

I’m seriously thinking of having a bucket handy at all times when reading these books.
If I’m reading a Mills and Boon bodice ripper then yes I would quite enjoy hearing all about their marital harmony and the cute things their kids do but not in a supposedly action thriller.

The way its going, we’re going to get three hundred pages of domestic bliss with a couple of pages where a murder is committed and quickly solved by Falcos wife who benevolently allows him to take the credit.

Who knows maybe LDs aiming at the broody,female, midlife change audience?
So I would like feed back from other Falco fans on these boards if there are any ,do you think that the books are getting more then a little bit too wet or even if you totally disagree with me plus what sex you are.

I intend to E-mail Lyndsay Davis’s web site in the near future.

Thanks.

2

I know what you mean but I don’t think they are that bad. There has always been a fair bit of non-essential romance/family life in the books.

I recently read her latest, Alexandria, and I thought that was much nearer her best - quite a few of the recent offerings have just so so, not because of the lovey-dovey bit but because they were just weak stoies and badly paced. This led me to reread the Iron Hand of Mars (her fourth or fifth book I think) and it had just about as much of Falco worrying about Helena as the recent offerings.

Then again I do actually like detective stories which have a wider range. I actually like Dorothy L Sayers’ *Gaudy Night *and *Busman’s Honeymoon *as much or more than the earlier LPW novels :smiley:

ps 53 year old male.

3

OMG, I didn’t realize there was a new one out! I’m going to have to see if the library has it, funds are tight just now.

One of my favorites was Venus in Copper.

I know Helena is upper class patrician, but no matter how much money he gets I think Falco will always be a Suburan at heart.

4

I suggest the SPQR series, by John R. Maddox.

5

Yeah, I’ve lost patience with this series, I stopped reading a few books ago. Actually primarily because the copy-editing is appalling! But also the mysteries to solve have been pretty lame and the characters seem to be increasingly thin.

I put my professional feelings aside to read the books, and on that front (s)he is at least OK, though I always hope for more than I get.

It’s a fact that the majority of mystery readers are women, so I’m not surprised if she has descended into chick lit.

26 year old female, Roman historian

6

I read a few of the Falco novels but got bored with 'em and quit. He ain’t no Gordianus The Finder.

Maybe I’ll just take a month off and re-read McCullough’s “Masters of Rome” again for the 4th time.

7

McCullough is a total genius and the Masters of Rome superb literature,but Saylor I think is appalling,I read several Gordianus books and just couldn’t get into them; because his knowledge of Roman custom and every day life appeared to be based on what he’d seen in old movies and his hero didn’t seem to think anything at all like an ancient Roman; his cultural values being firmly rooted in the 20thc.

Maybe he’s improved I dont honestly know,I did try reading his fictional history of Rome from its beginnings but gave up because it seemed repetetive and unimaginative.

I will try to get my hands on some of the SPQR series and give it a try.

But back to the plot,I’m currently reading Alexandria and to be honest its not a badly written story,its just so irritating that Falcos main reason for existance seems to be to praise Helena to the ground(Which if she was the official main character she wouldn’t be able to do herself for reasons of modesty).

I’ve just had to endure an account of a family visit to the zoo,the cute things the kids said,what animals they preferred,though there was a little bit of subtle probing of a potential suspect(By Helena of course) but this quickly came to an end because they didn’t want to leave the children with other people for too long.

Yes this is supposed to be a murder mystery.

Also Falco has broken all normal protocol and custom by taking her into a "female forbidden"academic establishment on the flimsiest of excuses(We are talking about a middle class Roman with an upper class wife in Classical times) just because he thinks that she’ll enjoy it,though of course she gives deep insights into the people they meet there that Falco inspite of being a proffessional investigator is apparently incapable of making.

It would be something like a man of today taking his wife shopping while she was completely naked and asking a department store to let her clear a blocked toilet while she was there to prove her equality.

But now I’ve got that off of my chest I’ll just thank the present repliers for their feedback and look forward to more of the same.

8

I read the first couple of SPQR books and found them to be a little dry: too much history and not enough novel. Lots of exposition, with the convenient presence of a foreigner to whom Roman customs must be explained.

I loved the early Gordianus books, but the last few have not been well written, although I haven’t read The Triumph of Caesar yet. The Falco books are lighter and funnier, if not as rich as Saylor’s books.

9

Fully agree with you about Saylor - I’ve tried but just can’t get into them. McCullough’s Masters of Rome series are supurb, although even with them she really does love Julius Ceasar a bit too much and I don’t think the final three are as good as the early ones.

In the Falco, Roman detective genre, have you tried Ruth Downie’s Medicus/Ruso books? I’ve read the first (Medicus and the Disappearing Dancing Girls) and enjoyed it (not great literature but a good way to while away an afternoon).

10

Saylor’s gone off the rails too. His first four or so books, where he is basing them on actual speeches of Cicero, are quite good (though with occasional anachronisms). Once he got away from that premise he hasn’t been able to hold them up as well.

I’m going to pick up Downie’s first book to read this summer, it looks fun in a frothy way.

11

McCullough admits in her appendices that she overdoes the Caesarian hero worship and dismisses it as the prerogative of the romantic “lady novelist”. And she did seem to lose the fire in the last couple. Nevertheless her Caesar (and her Marius, Sulla and Pompey even more so) are probably the best fictional renditions of those characters ever. And she did a marvelous, if not entirely original, debunking of Cicero.

Fortunately, I read “Masters” before I got to Gordianus or Falco. So it was easy to not get excessively enthused about them.