An ancient Roman mystery with a feisty protagonist seemed right up there with stories about cats who knit and solve mysteries. I couldn't be seen with this! I write hard-driving thrillers where the men are tough and the women are tough, too. And then I was incredibly dubious - and a bit embarrassed - when I read the jacket, which described Falco as 'a private informer with a knack for trouble.' The jacket looked like something out of a coloring book. So it was with much excitement that I went to my local bookstore and found The Silver Pigs, the first book in the Falco series. Fidelis told me she knew a great crime series set in ancient Rome that did exactly that. And of course being a crime writer, I wanted it to be a crime novel. To me, it seemed much more of a challenge to write about characters who could disagree with each other without completely wiping out their relationship.

I'm not one of those readers who enjoys books where the main characters break up in the beginning and make up in the end, and that's the romantic tension, multiplied by however many books there are in the series. I was talking to fellow author Fidelis Morgan about the difficulty of writing a thriller series where the main characters' relationship with each other is healthy, balanced and still interesting. I clearly remember the person who recommended the Marcus Didius Falco series to me. Karin Slaughter's latest thriller is called Unseen.

Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Silver Pigs Subtitle A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery Author Lindsey Davis

The silver pigs book