Anton Lesser and Anna Madeley star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Lindsey Davis's second best-selling Falco novel featuring the Roman detective.Rome, AD 71. Against his better judgement, Marcus Didius Falco secretly disposes of a decayed corpse for the Emperor Vespasian, then heads for the beautiful Bay of Naples with his friend Petronius. He conveniently forgets to mention to his companion that this will be no holiday. They have been sent to investigate the murderous members of a failed coup, now sunning themselves in luxurious villas and on fancy yachts in Neapolis, Capreae, and Pompeii. The idyllic seaside location fails to help his doomed romance with Helena Justina, whom Falco met and courted so stormily in The Silver Pigs. The deeper he probes, the more it seems that Helena is inextricably connected to the elite plotters, in ways that the smitten Falco cannot bear to contemplate.
