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Ode to a Banker
- Falco, Book 12
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Series: Marcus Didius Falco, Book 12
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Categories: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Mystery
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Summary
"The first concern of an author is to do down his colleagues."
In the long, hot Roman summer of AD 74, Falco, private informer and spare-time poet, gives a reading for his family and friends. Things get out of hand, as usual. The event is taken over by Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and patron to a group of struggling writers, who offers to publish Falco's work. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates Falco in a gruesome literary murder, so when commissioned to investigate, Falco is forced to accept.
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- Anonymous User
- 15-07-19
love FALCO books but gettimg harder to not have
Christian RODSKA reading them I have to go back and 're read the RODSKA books again
1 person found this helpful
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- Mary Carnegie
- 15-11-15
Inappropriate narrator, good story.
The reader has been badly chosen a first-person narrator representing the plebeian, ironic, canny Falco. If Christian Rodska had told this tale, I’d have chuckled out loud several times- even on second or third listenings. Griffin reads slowly and enunciates clearly, even pedantically. Perhaps the publishers thought this bland performance would be more accessible for those for whom British English is not the mother tongue. The story is good, a nod to 20th century “body in the library” whodunnits, with a Poirot style denouement but with well-researched background on publishing and banking, and casual cultural jokes, like the dubious publishing house rejecting the writings of a certain Martialis as “crap”, unmarketable.
2 people found this helpful
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- DFK
- 17-06-20
Super fun, as always
I love this series (I know I’ll be sad when I’ve finished them). This time it’s banking and book publishing surrounding the murder mystery in Ancient Rome. As always, together with the fun and mystery, we’ve got our cast of characters and we learn about Roman and Greek banking practices. I can’t recommend this series enough! Gordon Griffin does a great job, as always. There are several narrators in the series - it always takes a bit of time to switch from one to the other, but they all are excellent.