The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis

This is the first book of the series about a private informer, Didius Falco, in the Roman Empire. The background of Falco is slowly explained after the plunge into the first mystery as to why a beautiful young lady is running in the Forum being chased by some unsavoury characters. Falco rescues her and take her to his home. Soon he finds out that she is related to a senator who hires him to find out why this young lady was abducted. Slowly facts emerge that something had been hidden in the young lady’s bank vault and this was the cause of the attempted kidnap. 

Falco obtains this object, a silver pig, or ingot of lead with silver before it is extracted. This is from the silver mines in Britain and is the property of the government. So what is it doing here in the streets of Rome? It had been found and kept secretly by the senator while investigations were initiated to find out how this ingot got out of the hands of the government. But just as Falco takes up the case to keep the young lady safe she is murdered. Who killed this very pretty young lady and why had she asked Falco to meet her at a warehouse? 

It appears to tie in with the silver pig and so Falco sets out to Britain to find out how the ingots were being smuggled out from there and reaching the Roman rebels, as this much finance could only mean a plot to overthrow the emperor. The only way Falco can find out what is happening to get work in the mines by impersonating as a runaway slave. Will he succeed? How will he get out of the mines again? I need to stop giving away the plot here as this takes us well into the first part of the conspiracy uncovered by Falco. He has still a long way to go before he can identify who killed his young client. He meets the cousin of that young lady who at first is not very endearing but she grows on Falco as they spend time together.

This is a good murder mystery with a political conspiracy to thicken the plot. The way of life during those Roman Empire days are well described. The places are of course named as they were then and often require guess work particularly when they are in West Country in Britain. There is romance and friendship and tussle between republican and royalist ideology. I am going to enjoy reading the rest of the series if this first sample is anything to go by. Happy reading to all.