Review: The Silver Pigs

The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ancient Rome is fascinating. It holds the beginnings of so much of our modern world, and the political intrigues, military campaigns, unsettlingly familiar cultural practices and world-devouring expansion give us a lifetime of incredible stories. I want to know it all.

Unfortunately, this means that I struggle to read fiction about it. I don't want to start mixing up the real, breathtaking history of it with someone else's ideas. So it's really too bad that Lindsey Davis's writing is so entertaining. For a first novel, it was really quite good: funny, exciting, and interesting characters. The plot got a little confused at times, but the engaging voice and forward momentum glossed things over well enough.

This is only the first of a daunting twenty books about the same uncouth, grizzled detective. While his hard-boiledness is a little cliche at first, he reveals enough depth and complexity to at least interest me further (but for my earlier objection). He's a good replacement for, say, Jack Reacher, who wears a little thin after the too-many installments I've read. It's also nice to read a detective novel by a female author, meaning our hyper-masculine protagonist treats the women in his life with something approaching decency. (I'm looking at you, Reacher.)

Maybe I will try another one, after all...

And if you're interested in the ancient Rome non-fiction I was mooning over, I couldn't oversell the riveting Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, by Tom Holland.

View all my reviews