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Sep. 12th, 2013 01:23 pmI think reading all those Peter Grant books gave me, like, fake-noir nostalgia or something, because about a month ago I fell facefirst into a reread of Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco books.
The Falco books are basically advertised as A JADED PRIVATE EYE SOLVES NOIR MYSTERIES IN ANCIENT ROME and once upon a time I DEVOURED them. I started my reread at the beginning with Silver Pigs, which begins with Our Hero hitting sketchily on a sixteen-year-old and having manpain about her subsequent death, and I started to get kind of nervous that the Suck Fairy had visited them in the past ten or fifteen years.
Then we got to the introduction of Falco's love interest and I remembered MY HUGE MEGA-CRUSH on ~*~HELENA JUSTINA~*~, responsible and strong-minded senator's daughter, and suddenly everything was explained.
. . . I mean, Falco is also very enjoyable as a narrator, once you get past the rocky start, and the breezy, historically disrespectful, consciously anachronistic tone is the kind of thing I love. Is it plausible that grubby private informer Falco can saunter in and give Emperor Vespasian a piece of his Republican mind any time he wants to? NOPE. Do I care? NOT REALLY. But honestly I still spend most of the books kind of idly turning pages until either ~*~HELENA JUSTINA~*~ or a member of Falco's family turns up.
. . . have I mentioned Falco's family? Falco's family is GREAT. I super enjoy how Falco's thoughts about how he is a sad loner are constantly interrupted by getting dragged off for togetherness time and/or a lecture from his mother. In the second book, Falco gets an emo teenaged nephew dumped on him for the course of his adventure and spends a significant portion of his time awkwardly attempting give him the Talk. In the fourth book, he is encumbered with a terrifying eight-year-old niece. This kind of thing is balm to my soul, which otherwise has little patience for angsty loner detectives. Helena's family is also great, and although it is, again, in no way plausible how amiably tolerant Helena's dad is of this drifter that his daughter has dragged home I super enjoy his awkward attempts to bond with Falco; he is such a DAD.
I also enjoy how there is really no pretense made that Falco and Helena are not a super stable established relationship from the get-go, like, of course there is some source of angst or another ever every book but even when they are temporarily broken up it always goes like this:
FALCO: We are never, ever, ever, ever, ever getting back together.
HELENA: Like, EVER.
FALCO: -- oh, by the way, honey, my mom wanted some souvenir frying pans, do you think you could pick those up for me if you have a chance?
HELENA: Oh, sure, babe, I know what your mom likes, I'll come by your apartment to drop them off tomorrow.
FALCO: . . . and THEN, GOODBYE, FOREVER.
(Although I should warn for a
( spoiler ))
Anyway I have zoomed up through the fourth book, which is the last one that was easily available for e-reader without having to go through the difficulty of actually physically checking it out of the library. We will see how far I get now through the remaining . . . sixteen? WHOA LINDSEY DAVIS YOU HAVE BEEN BUSY SINCE I WAS THIRTEEN.
The Falco books are basically advertised as A JADED PRIVATE EYE SOLVES NOIR MYSTERIES IN ANCIENT ROME and once upon a time I DEVOURED them. I started my reread at the beginning with Silver Pigs, which begins with Our Hero hitting sketchily on a sixteen-year-old and having manpain about her subsequent death, and I started to get kind of nervous that the Suck Fairy had visited them in the past ten or fifteen years.
Then we got to the introduction of Falco's love interest and I remembered MY HUGE MEGA-CRUSH on ~*~HELENA JUSTINA~*~, responsible and strong-minded senator's daughter, and suddenly everything was explained.
. . . I mean, Falco is also very enjoyable as a narrator, once you get past the rocky start, and the breezy, historically disrespectful, consciously anachronistic tone is the kind of thing I love. Is it plausible that grubby private informer Falco can saunter in and give Emperor Vespasian a piece of his Republican mind any time he wants to? NOPE. Do I care? NOT REALLY. But honestly I still spend most of the books kind of idly turning pages until either ~*~HELENA JUSTINA~*~ or a member of Falco's family turns up.
. . . have I mentioned Falco's family? Falco's family is GREAT. I super enjoy how Falco's thoughts about how he is a sad loner are constantly interrupted by getting dragged off for togetherness time and/or a lecture from his mother. In the second book, Falco gets an emo teenaged nephew dumped on him for the course of his adventure and spends a significant portion of his time awkwardly attempting give him the Talk. In the fourth book, he is encumbered with a terrifying eight-year-old niece. This kind of thing is balm to my soul, which otherwise has little patience for angsty loner detectives. Helena's family is also great, and although it is, again, in no way plausible how amiably tolerant Helena's dad is of this drifter that his daughter has dragged home I super enjoy his awkward attempts to bond with Falco; he is such a DAD.
I also enjoy how there is really no pretense made that Falco and Helena are not a super stable established relationship from the get-go, like, of course there is some source of angst or another ever every book but even when they are temporarily broken up it always goes like this:
FALCO: We are never, ever, ever, ever, ever getting back together.
HELENA: Like, EVER.
FALCO: -- oh, by the way, honey, my mom wanted some souvenir frying pans, do you think you could pick those up for me if you have a chance?
HELENA: Oh, sure, babe, I know what your mom likes, I'll come by your apartment to drop them off tomorrow.
FALCO: . . . and THEN, GOODBYE, FOREVER.
(Although I should warn for a
( spoiler ))Anyway I have zoomed up through the fourth book, which is the last one that was easily available for e-reader without having to go through the difficulty of actually physically checking it out of the library. We will see how far I get now through the remaining . . . sixteen? WHOA LINDSEY DAVIS YOU HAVE BEEN BUSY SINCE I WAS THIRTEEN.
