First-century Rome is plagued by all the evils the have beset major cities since time immemorial: crime, corruption, squalor and, worst of all, tourists. When a barge full of those entitled creatures arrives in Rome, they hit all the touristy hot-spots (the Amphitheatre, the Capitol, the dodgy bars with dubious entertainments) before departing for the next destination --- leaving behind one of their party, dead and floating in the Tiber. While the authorities first try to pass her death off as a suicide, it’s quickly proved that the victim was strangled to death and her body was dumped. When Flavia Albia, a private informer, learns that the victim was in Rome searching for the man who abandoned her --- Florius, Albia’s vicious nemesis --- Albia is determined to find out the truth behind the murder and finally have her revenge.

Flavia Albia has taken over her father's business as a private informer. She only has two hard and fast rules --- avoid political cases and family cases because nothing good comes of either of them. Unfortunately, since Albia isn't good at avoiding either, it's really more of a guideline. So when her Aunt Junia demands Albia track down a couple of deadbeats who owe her money, it's an offer Albia can't refuse. It turns out to be a relatively easy job and leads to some new work --- tracking down some essential paperwork for the debtor family. But if Albia doesn't find the paperwork that proves that family's ancestor was a properly freed slave, the family could lose everything. The more she digs, the more skeletons she finds in their closet, until murder in the past leads to murder in the present.

In the first century, under Domitian's reign, strange and brutal goings-on are nothing new in Rome. Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken over her father's business as a private informer, but she tries to shy away from the brutal, the complicated and the political. Unfortunately, she's not very good at turning them down. This time a commission shows up on her doorstep --- someone is staging brutal murders in some of the most beautiful buildings in Rome. So far, the only clue was the phrase that one survivor managed to croak: "The undertaker did it..." With little to go on and bodies starting to pile up, Albia has to unravel the strangest mystery of her career in short order if she is to stop this dismaying orgy of murder.

Flavia Albia, daughter and successor of private informer Marcus Didius Falco, is twiddling her thumbs with no clients during the December festival of Saturnalia. But that doesn't mean all is quiet. Her husband Tiberius and the Fourth Cohort are battling organized crime interests that are going to war over the festival nuts. A series of accidental poisonings, then bloody murders of rival nut-sellers, and finally a gruesome warning to Tiberius from the hidden criminal powers to back off. Albia has had just about enough and combines forces with Tiberius to uncover the hidden criminal gangs trying to worm their way into the establishment at a banquet of the emperor Domitian.

At the feet of her adoptive father, renowned private informer Marcus Didius Falco, Flavia Albia learned a number of important rules. First and foremost: always keep one's distance from the palace --- nothing good comes from that direction. But right behind it: murder is the business of the Vigiles, best to leave them to it. Having broken the first rule more often than she'd like, it's no surprise to anyone when she finds herself breaking the second one. The public gardens named after the Caesars is a place that nice girls are warned away from, and when a series of bodies are uncovered, it seems that a serial killer has been haunting the grove for years. The case is assigned to one Julius Karus, a cohort of the Vigiles, but Flavia Albia decides to work with this vile man and bring the serial killer to justice.

A man falls to his death from the Tarpeian Rock, which overlooks the Forum in the Capitoline Hill in Ancient Rome. While it looks like a suicide, one witness swears that she saw it happen and that he was pushed. This usually would attract very little official notice, but this man happened to be in charge of organizing the Imperial Triumphs demanded by the emperor. Normally, the investigation would be under the auspices of her new(ish) husband. But, worried about his stamina following a long recovery, private informer Flavia Albia steps in. With the date of the Triumphs fast approaching, Flavia must unravel a truly complex case of murder before danger shows up on her own doorstep.

In 90 A.D., following the Saturninus revolt in Germany, the Emperor Domitian has become more paranoid about traitors and dissenters around him. This leads to several senators and even provincial governors facing charges and being executed for supposed crimes of conspiracy and insulting the emperor. Wanting to root out all the supports of Saturninus from the Senate, one of Domitian’s men offers to hire Flavia Albia to do some intelligence work. Adding to the confusion is that yet another Nero pretender has shown up in Parthia and is trying to rally support for his claim for the throne. With intrigue upon intrigue swirling around the capital city, it’s up to Albia to uncover what is --- and isn’t --- the real threat.