Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)If I were to review the Falco installments, Ode to a Banker would come very near the top of the list. Part of its charm is the subtle differences in Davis' writing. Rather than churning out the same old Falco reactions to everything right down to his meticulous interviewing technique she lends him an almost stressed and bored air to his `informing' this time.
It is far more realistic for it.
Look at Didius' situation: he is happily married with a screaming Julia Junilla and Sosia Favonia to appear, with his family leaning on him as the nominal paterfamilas. Everything has become so much more personal with Anacrites misguided courtship of Maia and bizarre relationship with Ma. If Falco were to remain his professional self in this novel it would simply be untenable.
So, we plunge once more into the murky underworld of Rome and come up against unscrupulous bankers (always it's the freedman with his fingers where they shouldn't be - very Nero-esque) and set against a literary backdrop. You can almost laugh at Davis satiricizing of authors (I wonder if there are some real authors out there that they are based on?) and the entire novel exudes petty bickering with a tired Falco finally yanking all the suspects together for his Agatha Christie-eque denouement.
I cannot fault this installment simply because Davis steps away from the formulaic Falcoisms that were appearnig (it was getting obvious to pinpoint the guilty parties in recent novels) and it came as a surprise to find out who the culprit was, especially given the punishment.
Read it, delight in it, but don't expect it to be anything like the Silver Pigs era, Falco has matured, become a little more world-weary and his informing reflects it and this installment is all the more better for it.
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