Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra (UK 2013)

From the Publisher:
DROWNING IN MYSTERY, DYING ON STAGE
The spirit of adventure calls Marcus Didius Falco on a new spying mission for the Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He's picking up extra fees from his old friend Thalia, the snake dancer, as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With the Chief Spy Anacrites paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong.

A dangerous brush with the Brother, the sinister ruler of Nabataean Petra, sends Falco and his girlfriend Helena on a fast camel-ride to Syria. They join a traveling theatre group, which keeps losing members in non-accidental drownings.

The bad acting and poor audiences are almost as bad as the desert and its scorpions - then as the killer hovers, Falco tries to write a play...

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra. A Marcus Didius Falco Novel. Arrow, ISBN: 9780099515128 (April, 2013), 401 p., £8.99.

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
Drowning in mystery, dying on stage...
The spirit of adventure callls Marcus Didius Falco on a new spying mission for the Emperor Vespasian to teh untamed East. He's picking up extra fees from his old friend Thalia the snake dancer as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With teh Chief Spy Anacrites paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong.

A dangerous brush with the Brother, the sinister ruler of Nabataean Petra, sends Falco and his girlfriend Helena on a fast camel-ride to Syria. They join a traveling theatre group, which keeps losing members in non-accidental drownings. The bad acting and poor audiences are almost as bad as the desert and its scorpions - then as the killer hovers, Falco tries to write a play...

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra. A Marcus Didius Falco Novel. Arrow, ISBN: 9780099515128 (August, 2008), 401 p., £7.99.

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
"I haven't read historical fiction this good since I, Claudius," wrote he Detroit Free Press about the Lindsey Davis mysteries that captured a legion of fans in Europe and the United Kingdom, then came, saw, and conquered America too. Featuring Marcus Didius Falco, Rome's only hard-boiled private eye, this "top drawer series" (Newsday) shows us that ars longa, vita brevis, and the need for a wiseacre detective, eterna...

LAST ACT IN PALMYRA
There are times when a shamus has to get out of town, even in A.D. 72. With money and woman troubles mounting in Rome, Falco is heading east to search for a missing Roman Circus performer and to carry out a secret spy mission for the Emperor. The woman causing Falco's heart trouble, Helena Justina, a senator's daughter, is coming along for the trip. She can't live openly with the plebeian Falco, who is below her in rank. But she can't live without him, either. Ergo, they're together in desolate, dangerous Syria to find a corpse, lose a lady, and join a traveling theater troupe, where the last act is, of course, murder.

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra. A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery Novel. Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0446404748 (January, 1997), 408 p., $6.50.

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra (USA 1996)

From the Publisher:
Friends, Romans, and mystery lovers: tne sardonic, deft, and delightfully entertaining author Lindsey Davis is back with her sixth novel featuring Marcus Didius Falco. Just as Ellls Peters brings twelfth-century Britain to life, Lindsey Davis re-creates Imperial Rome with a seamless blending of history and detection. In this newest work, Falco is in trouble again, walking the marbled vias of the Roman Empire, ready to wrestle his most colossal mystery yet.

LAST ACT IN PALMYRA
There comes a time when every smart detective needs to get out of town, even in A.D. 72. With money and woman troubles mounting in Rome, Falco takes on two cases that will send him east. One is to track down a runaway circus musician, a beauty named Sophrona. The other is an undercover mission for the Emperor's chief spy, a slimy fellow called Anacrites. The woman causing Falco's heart trouble, Helena Justina, a senator's daughter, is coming along for the trip. She can't live with the plebeian Falco, who is below her in rank. But she can't live without him, either. Ergo they're both headed for Petra - and a nasty case of murder.

Once in this trading center south of Syria, they stumble upon a dead Roman playwright and are in the wrong place at the right time to take the blame. They escape by joining the dead man's traveling theater group. Unfortunately, Falco compounds the original crime with one of his own - he accepts a job writing for the troupe.

Acting turns out to be a very risky business on the eastern edges of the Empire. The desert is filled with scorpions and snakes as well as a killer who is about to add another victim to the cast. Now as a deadly drama is played out in full costume, complete with clowns, Falco needs to spot the culprit... and stop a final act that can cost a tough Roman his self-respect, his job, and not least of all, his and Helena's lives.

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra. A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery Novel. Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0892966254 (March, 1996), 408 p., $22.95.

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra (UK 1995)

From the Publisher:
AD 72: Marcus Didius Falco leaves Rome on his most dangerous mission yet.
A commission to find a missing water organ player and an Imperial order to spy out the Lands of the East send Falco and his aristocratic girlfriend, Helena Justina, across the sea to Petra.

But the rose-red city turns out not to be so rosy after the couple discover a murdered Roman playwright and they flee with the man's erstwhile employers, a group of travelling actors.

Falco, naturally, feels obliged not only to take up his stylus to fill the dead man's role in the company, but also to investigate the murder. Soon another murder, several accidents and the dangers of the desert are making him wish he'd stayed at home...

Lindsey Davis: Last Act In Palmyra. Arrow, ISBN: 0099831805 (June, 1995), 401 p., £4.99.