A Body in the Bathhouse

A Body in the Bathhouse sends Marcus Didius Falco from Rome to Roman Britain, where he has been tasked by the Emperor Vespasian to investigate a palace building project running behind schedule and plagued by fatal accidents. When a corpse turns up under the tiles of Falco's own bath house, and the contractors flee to the construction site, he finds himself both investigator and target in a place far from his usual beat.

Simon Prebble has a gift for the dry wit that distinguishes Lindsey Davis's historical mysteries, and his portrayal of Falco captures the informer's world-weary intelligence and occasional exasperation with the ancient world's inefficiencies. Prebble's voice carries the right tone of sardonic detachment, making the Roman-Britain setting feel genuinely foreign while keeping the procedural logic clear.