Binding: Mass Market Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914 EAN: 9780446605915 ISBN: 0446605913 Label: Grand Central Publishing Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 432 Publication Date: January 01, 1998 Publisher: Grand Central Publishing Sales Rank: 62404 Studio: Grand Central Publishing
Product DescriptionBalbinus Pius, the most notorious gangster in Emperor Vespasian's Rome, has been convicted of a capital crime at last. A quirk of Roman law, however, allows citizens condemned to death 'time to depart' and find exile outside the empire. Now as every hoodlum in Rome scrambles to take over Balbinus' operations, private eye Marcus Didius Falco has to deal with an unprecedented wave of crime--and the sneaking suspicion that Balbinus' exile may not really be so permanent after all.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Excellent story
I recently have been rereading the Falco series, and I find A Time to Depart to be interesting, vivid and funny. I like the mixture of the tragic and the comic, with the reality of the similarity between people of our own time and people who lived in Vespasian Rome made vividly clear. I liked this book so much that I decided to buy a used hardback edition of it, because I know I will be reading it again.
Rating: - Not Free SF Reader
Underworld upheaval.
Good old Petronius busts a Roman gang leader, leading to a fight for control and his former position among the Roman criminal element.
Or, in other words, people Falco is somewhat familiar with, so the Emperor taps him to look into what is going on, and things get a little hair for both he and Helena.
3.5 out of 5
Rating: - The Books get Better and Better
This is the seventh novel in the mystery series featuring Marcus Didius Falco, an informer and sleuth in Rome at the time of Vespasian. A series of books that have become hugely popular, so much so that the author is now at the forefront of historical mystery writers. It was probably a stroke of genius on her part to have novels that are extremely well researched and contain all the elements that would be and should be found in the Roman world of circa AD70, but to have a lead character who has ... Read More
Rating: - Marvellous Stuff!
In this book Helena and Falco are back in Imperial Rome. The stories seem to be more exciting when Falco's on his own turf. This story tells about rival gangs and gangsters in ancinet Rome. I don't know whether it's comforting or not to know that these types of bad guys have been around forever. Falco and his friend Petro get involved in a city wide manhut. Corpses turn up along the way. We see heists, murders, fraud and the whole gamut in this book. It's a rollicking good tale, and I can hardly wait ... Read More
Rating: - The Too-Long Arm of the Law
The Rome of the Vespasian's time may be ancient to us, but it's home to Marcus Didius Falco, the emperor's informer and hero of "Time to Depart," the seventh book in this series by Lindsey Davis.
The departure in the title is that of Balbinus Pius, the godfather of Rome's underworld. Convicted of a capital crime, he is given "time to depart" under law to escape execution. Return to the city would mean death.
Shortly thereafter, the city is hit with a number of grandiose crimes: ... Read More
- Excellent story
- The Too-Long Arm of the Law
