Les enquêtes de Marcus Didius falco - Lindsey Davis

Les enquêtes de Marcus Didius Falco ---- Lindsey Davis

Honesta missio était le terme avec lequel on congédiait les légionnaires à le fin de leur temps. Généralement, les "vaillants soldats" recevait une compensation en récompense du temps passé à servir Rome, ce n'est pas le cas de Marcus Didius Falco qui s'est établi détective privé dans la Rome de Vespasien et qui, sans le vouloir, va se retrouver mêlé à la vie tumultueuse du Capitole au fur et à mesure de ses aventures.
Outre le côté "roman policier", les oeuvres de Lindsey davis ont le mérite de nous transporter dans le quotidien des rues de Rome, mais également de nous faire découvrir diverses provinces de l'empire romain.
Marcus est loin d'être un héros sans peur et sans reproche, il doit faire face à une famille qui vénère la mémoire du frère tombé glorieusement lors du siège de Jérusalem et essayer de négocier sa vie avec une patricienne au caractère fort dont il s'éprend alors qu'il n'est qu'un plébeien...
Qui a dit que la vie dans l'Antiquité était simple ?

1. Les cochons d'argent



En l'an 70 après Jésus-Christ, depuis la mort de Néron, Rome est en plein chaos : plus que jamais, la lutte pour le pouvoir fait rage.Mais tandis que certains rivalisent, d'autres profitent de la confusion générale pour vider les caisses de l'Etat. Et lorsqu'un sénateur engage le détective privé Didius Falco pour démasquer les responsables, ce dernier accepte plus par goût du risque que par civisme.D'ailleurs sa mission ne manquera pas de dangers, car il semblerait que cette affaire implique de très hauts dignitaires de l'Etat, lesquels entendent bien ne pas s'encombrer d'un vulgaire détective...

2. A l'ombre des conspirateurs



Alors que dans Rome des révoltes ne cessent d'éclater, l'empereur Vespasien confie à son espion Falco une bien curieuse mission : rapporter à un sénateur établi dans la Magna Graecia les cendres de son frère, disparu dans un incendie apparemment accidentel. Mais hors de la Via Appla, point de salut : l'empire et ses lois s'arrêtent aux portes de Rome et au sud, les clans s'affrontent encore selon des rites ancestraux ; on s'y égorge pour un mot malheureux prononcé imprudemment. Lorsque arrivé à Crotone Didius Falco échappe de peu à la mort, c'est pour tomber sur quelques colosses qui, pour de mystérieuses raisons, ont l'air déterminé à l'empêcher d'atteindre le but de son voyage...

3. Une veuve romaine



Dans la Rome impériale, encourir une disgrâce de l'empereur, c'est s'exposer à une déchéance certaine. Et Didius Falco, pour avoir déplu à une éminence grise du palais, se voit contraint de reprendre ses activités de détective privé. Une profession qui ne risque guère de lui rapporter le train de vie dont il rêve... Mais une bien curieuse affaire lui est soumise par une famille d'affranchis richissimes : ils craignent l'arrivée dans leur foyer de Severina Zotica, une veuve professionnelle qui s'est enrichie de chacune des morts de ses trois maris. Des morts très suspectes... Surveiller la coureuse de dot contre une somme confortable, voilà une mission en or pour Didius Falco. Mais tout se complique lorsque le promis de la belle romaine est assassiné... avant qu'elle ne l'épouse...

4. Voyage en Germanie



En l'an 71, les forêts denses et sombres de la Germania Libera sont peuplées de barbares sanguinaires. Elles sont aussi habitées par une prophétesse qui terrorise Rome, et hantées par les esprits de légionnaires romains massacrés dans les batailIes. C'est pourtant là que l'empereur envoie Marcus Didius Falco : sa mission, retrouver un commandant de légion en fuite dont la loyauté envers l'empire est mise en doute. Une sinécure, dans ce lieu dont peu reviennent vivants... Quand sur son chemin les meurtres se multiplient, et qu'en forêt ses seuls alliés s'avèrent une bande de soldats incapables, un chien solitaire et son jeune maître innocent, Falco est loin de se douter que son salut ne peut venir que d'une femme...

5. L'or de Poséidon



De retour d'une éprouvante mission en Germanie, Mracus Diduis Falco pensait pouvoir goûter à la sérénité d'un foyer confortable et d'une soirée en amoureux avec la bvelle Héléna Justina.

Mais, à peine a-t-il franchi le seuil de son logis que de nouveaux problèmes s'installent dans sa vie : son appartement a été dévasté, et alors qu'il cherche refuge chez sa mère, un légionnaire malpropre lui réclame de l'argent sous peines de représailles.

Lorsque Falco comprend que son défunt frère Festus a entraîné le soldat dans un trafic de statues grecques, il se voit contraint de partir à la recherche de ces antiquités pour réhabiliter la mémoire de son frère et sauver sa peau.

6. Dernier acte à Palmyre



En ce Ier siècle après Jésus-Christ, l'empereur Vespasien peine à maintenir l'emprise de Rome sur les terres lointaines. Notamment lorsqu'il s'agit de territoires qui regorgent de richesses, telle la Syrie, et que les ennemis de l'Empire guettent sa moindre faiblesse. L'homme de l'empereur, c'est Falco - Marcus Didius pour ses amis. Germanie, Gaule, Grèce, le détective privé aux mille ressources combat les méchants, les convainc de la toute-puissance de Rome et, sa mission accomplie, retrouve sa belle, l'élégante patricienne Helena Justina, dont il espère un jour faire son épouse - si Vespasien consent à le payer. Mais se rendre à Palmyre... Au fin fond du désert, aux confins de l'Empire, voilà une mission qui ne sourit guère à Falco. Et lorsqu'au cours de son périple il aura rencontré un python, quelques chameaux, deux ou trois cadavres et un dangereux criminel, on ne pourra que lui donner raison, et craindre pour sa vie...

7. Le temps des adieux



Un criminel notoire est exilé loin de Rome, mais juste après son départ, un gigantesque cambriolage a lieu dans Rome qui met sur le pied de guerre toutes les cohortes de vigiles. Falco doit alors découvrir qui a repris en main le crime organisé. Mais en même temps il se retrouve avec un bébé abandonné sur les bras, une maison à trouver pour sa petite famille et la disparition de sa nièce à résoudre. Une vie agitée pour Falco.


attention : celui-ci n'existe actuellement qu'en grand format, de plus je vous conseille de les lire dans l'ordre dans lequel ils sont présentés, la chronologie ayant un rôle primordial pour comprendre la vie tourmentée de Falco

Pour ceux que l'anglais ne rebute pas

Pour prouver que les éditeurs ne font les chose qu'à moitié, il existe à l'heure actuelle 17 titres dans les enquêtes de Falco. "Time to depart" - le Temps des adieux- date de 1995 et n'a été traduit qu'en 2002. Depuis, plus rien à l'horizon en vf...

Alors puisque j'a la plupart des autres en vo, je vais les présenter avec le 4eme de couverture original...

8. A Dying Light in Corduba

couverture édition originale anglaise

Falco attempts networking to boost his career. A disastrous night ends with a hangover and murder; he doesn't achieve even a smile from the dancing girl, then he finds himself forced to take responsibility for his desperately injured enemy, the Chief Spy Anacrites. Mere weeks before Helena is due to give birth, Falco and she set off to unravel an oily conspiracy in southern Spain. Lying in wait are tycoons with low motives, murderous women in disguise, and a slippery trail laid by the Roman equivalent of that bureaucratic nightmare, the Admin Trainee; he knows nothing, thinks he can do everything, and wants something more than is good for the Empire. Falco believes the power of the privileged may be impossible to thwart - and for devious commercial motives, even the Emperor may not welcome his attempt. Will the lamps dim and the scented bath oil run out in Rome? And will Falco keep his promise to be with Helena at the dangerous moment when their baby is born?

9. Three Hands in the Fountain



The first in a loosely planned trilogy in which Falco succumbs to pressure and tries to find a partner to work with: here, his best friend Petronius Longus. Petro's life is in every kind of crisis, so perhaps the last thing he needs is to join Falco in a search for the serial killer who has been dumping dismembered bodies in the aqueducts. Lacking forensic tools, hampered by administrative indifference, and dogged by the tiresome Anacrites - now championed by Falco's Ma, who thinks he's wonderful - the new partners discover unexpected tensions that may destroy their relationship; that's assuming Petro's dangerous girlfriend gangster's daughter Milvia doesn't do for him first. Or her terrible mother. As the author faces up to the task of handling a gruesome story in a sensitive manner, convention decrees that the killer is bound to attack someone we know - but who?…
This is the one where Falco buys the site of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and says nobody with taste and money would live there.

10. Two for the Lions



Still reluctantly seeking the perfect work companion, in the central book of the 'Partners' trilogy Falco has submitted to his Ma's machinations and taken on Anacrites (moonlighting while on sick leave from the Palace). The Chief Spy is thrilled. Falco is depressed. The author is nervous. Will her readers accept a story in which Falco & Partner become hardworking government tax auditors? Will her editor allow a corpse that isn't human? Will animal lovers riot? Is there any mileage in a missing plant hunt? Will plant lovers protest? Will the Anacrites fanclub allow Falco to exact revenge? If serial killing is hard to do tastefully, what about gladiating? How to avoid the cliché of threatening little Julia with Carthaginian child sacrifice? Will the Sacred Geese of Juno survive the poisoned corn, and will they come good for our boy?…

11. One Virgin Too Many



In the third, and final, book of the 'Partners' trilogy, Falco was intended to work with Helena's nice brother, Justinus. That seemed too good to be true, so he acquires a trickier helper - not to mention both his previous partners, Petronius and Anacrites, who hover around hoping to see him fall flat on his face.
An appeal to help a young child draws him reluctantly into the world of the Roman state cults - in which Fortune has given him a role of his own, though as he says, up to his boot-thongs in goose shit. A member of the Arval Brethren is murdered in their Sacred Grove, causing a sinister cover-up by the establishment, while the Vestal Virgins Lottery looks equally murky and is complicated by an association with Queen Berenice of Judaea that has attracted gossip. Hemmed in by patriarchal priests and their inbred offspring, grappled by Virgins without consciences, and imprisoned under threat of execution, Falco was already in enough trouble trying to look after his widowed sister and her heartbroken children - and that's before he has to dangle upside down over a very deep hole, supported only by the three partners who may be only too happy to drop him …

12. Ode to a Banker



Undeterred by his previous disasters, Falco gives a poetry reading: an illustrious audience, a spectacular locale - and a tedious patron of the arts who subsequently becomes the Body in the Library. Brought in by Petronius, Falco tangles with unscrupulous bankers, publishers and authors (actual and would-be), despising all of them and trusting none. Once again the vigiles watch and wait for him to fail.
Meanwhile, Pa is in trouble, Ma is the subject of unseemly gossip, Maia is restless, the dog is pregnant, Gloccus and Cotta have yet to finish their bath-house contract, and Anacrites is hovering dangerously, trying to move in on the family in several worrying ways. As the enforcers gather to encourage suicides and the writers' group twitters hopelessly in the Temple of Minerva, the summer heat rises while Rome echoes to the sound of commercial institutions crashing and needy authors being dropped after failing to meet deadlines. The safest ploy is to stay at home reading a good book. But are there any to be had, when heartless commercialism governs editorial decisions, and anyway the most promising scrolls are covered with blood?
Who ate the flan? Where is the other evidence? And will Falco be able to assemble all the suspects for a showdown in the Greek Library, then force the killer to come clean so he wins a confession bonus from the penny-pinching vigiles?

13. A Body in the Bath House



Now it's stippling and scumbling: fun with home makeovers - until the latest machinations of cast-off lover Anacrites pose a darker threat than normal. Falco and Helena take as many of their family as possible away from danger. Five years after they met in Britain, they go back there - to the fabulous royal palace at Fishbourne, its grand extension still on the drawing board and likely to remain there without careful management. Public Building projects never run smoothly, but few have as many hitches as this one. Two different architects jostling to take charge of the site don't help - though that may be dealt with - and the place is awash with dodgy contractors.
From the odoriferous gift left behind by bath house supremos, Gloccus and Cotta, to the fresher corpse in the Great King's opulent quarters (and the other body!) Falco faces one challenge after another, all the time auditing scams for Vespasian and trying to teach his grumbling assistants how to be of use to him. Will he ever get to London? (No, but then he doesn't want to go!) A night out watching a dancer sounds excellent relaxation - but the dancer may be Perella, Anacrites' murderous agent, the dive where she whirls her stuff is a dingy downtown bar full of fighting labourers, and even the artwork may turn nasty. Not the moment for toothache, especially with a dentist you don't know.

14. The Jupiter Myth



Beer but no oysters… It's holiday time for Falco and Helena - until a character he had disposed of reappears, dead, and causes a diplomatic incident. Naturally Julius Frontinus and Flavius Hilaris are thrilled that they have Falco on hand to sort it for them.
Although Londinium is at the end of the world, it's attracting all kinds of entrepreneurs: the best kind, the worst kind, and lawyers. Most of the streets are not even paved, yet they are as mean as in any city where the bad guys think they own the place. Bad women lie in wait as well, and some of them already know where hard man Falco has his soft spots. With an angry wife, a moody sister, Maia's increasingly dubious suiters, and a fractious Petronius, Falco has enough to contend with. Then he gets lumbered with an outraged king, a traumatised orphan, corruption, inefficiency, and British fast food outlets.
Plus Chloris. He knows Chloris. He knows her all too well.
Personal tragedy and political crises vie for the attention of both Falco and Petro, the one with a job he doesn't want, the other with a task he can't admit, and both dogged by faces from their past…
This is the one where travelling to do the research was particularly costly, time-consuming and exotic!

15. The Accusers



Needing to re-establish their presence in Rome, Falco and Associates become embroiled in the legal manoeuvres of Silius Italicus and Paccius Africanus, real-life uppercrust informers who thrive on exploiting the sins of the rich. Rubirius Metellus, an average senator (corrupt, nasty, hated by his relatives and possibly incestuous) has committed suicide to avoid paying his bills. It's a neat trick if you can get away with it, but he won't because Silius wants his huge fees and Paccius is advising most of the family, including the favoured ex-daughter-in-law, while M Didius Falco is on hand to defend old-fashioned concepts like justice for the innocent. Aulus takes an interest in agnates, Quintus gains an heir, Helena distrusts the ingénue and Falco risks his future using oratorical skills we have never imagined he owns. With poisoned pills, magic practices, women in labour, old Senate scandals and an appearance from dumb judge Marponius lined up, things are tricky even before the impiety charge – and that may be the end of everything...

16. Scandal Takes a Holiday



All those doubters who query 'Was there really a Daily Gazette?' will find the Acta Diurna carefully explained to shut them up. Falco visits Petronius and his favourite brother-in-law, Gaius Baebius, at Ostia while on a missing person hunt for a vanished scribe. Fun and frights and family pressures colour a sunny adventure beside the sea (NB we know our Hero cannot swim...) There would be pirates – had not Pompey cleared the seas of pirates, as everybody knows. Perhaps we shall learn what pirates do when they are not being pirates any more.

At least, Falco assures himself, there are no dead bodies in this one. Regular readers will know what that means. A little boy comes to tell the vigiles that his mummy won't wake up, for starters. The topiarist in fear of his life. Even Gaius Baebius takes sick leave. And that's before we meet the sailors who want to play games with their gangplank, the mysterious Illyrian (who may not be Illyrian at all), the boy racer speeding in the flash chariot at rush hour, and the girl with too many romantic ideas.