Rome, the very end of December. The Field of Mars is packed with monuments, none more beautiful than Domitian\"s new Odeon and Stadium. But the area has been overtaken by ugly events: elaborately staged murders. Someone bears a spectacular grudge against the theatrical community, and intends to get revenge in the most spectacular way possible....

Saturnalia, the Romans\" mid-December feast, nominally to celebrate the sun\"s rebirth but invariably a drunken riot. Flavia Albia needs a case to investigate, but all work is paused. The Aventine is full of fracturing families. Wives plot to leave their husbands, husbands plot to spend more time with their mistresses....

From renowned author Lindsey Davis, creator of the much-loved character, Marcus Didius Falco and his friends and family, comes the fourth novel in her all-new series set in ancient Rome. We first met Flavia Albia, Falco\"s feisty adopted daughter, in The Ides Of April....

Flavia Albia\"s day-old marriage is in trouble - her new husband may be permanently disabled and they have no funds. So when Palace officials ask her to help expose a plotter in their midst she is obliged to accept their commission. The plot could not be bigger....

In the blazing July heat of imperial Rome, Flavia Albia inspects a decomposing corpse. It has been discovered in lots to be auctioned by her family business, so she\"s determined to identify the dead man and learn how he met his gruesome end....

We first met Flavia Albia, Falco\"s feisty adopted daughter, in The Ides of April. Albia is a remarkable woman in what is very much a man\"s world: young, widowed and fiercely independent, she lives alone on the Aventine Hill in Rome and makes a good living as a hired investigator....