Desperate Undertaking - Lindsey Davis

Category: Adults, Historical Fiction, Mystery
Language: English
Keywords: Greek Tragedy Imperial Rome Murder

Written by Lindsey Davis
Read by Jane Collingwood
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Series: Flavia Albia: 10
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release date: July 26, 2022
Duration: 11:58:41

A mad killer (or killers!) is strewing bodies around in the most gruesome of manners and, true to form, it is up to Flavia Albia to determine what is really going on and stop this bacchanal of death.

In the first century, under Domitian’s reign, strange and brutal goings on are nothing new in Rome. Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken over her father’s business as a private informer but she tries to shy away from the brutal, the complicated, and the political - because nothing good comes of any of them. Unfortunately, she’s not very good at turning them down.

This time a commission shows up on her doorstep - someone is staging brutal murders in some of the most beautiful buildings in Rome, each staging different. So far, the only clue was the phrase that one survivor managed to croak, “The undertaker did it…” With little to go on and bodies starting to pile up, Albia has to unravel the strangest mystery of her career in short order if she’s to stop this dismaying orgy of murder.

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.

‘The clear, sometimes biting voice of narrator Jane Collingwood delivers the tenth installment of the Flavia Albia mystery series, … Collingwood captures her wry sense of humor, sarcasm, and steely tone when questioning witnesses and suspects. This murder mystery involves a number of gruesome killings based on Greek tragedies and myths. The theater community is suspected and not to be trusted. Many characters make appearances, and Collingwood manages to bring them to life despite the nearly two millennia that separate them from listeners.”—AudioFile