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Last Act in Palmyra

Falco, Book 6

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Last Act in Palmyra

By: Lindsey Davis
Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
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'I was just a freelance hero doing his best in a hard world.'

The spirit of adventure calls Falco on a new spying mission for the Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He's picking up extra fees from his old friend Thalia the snake dancer as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With the Chief Spy Anacrites paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong.

A dangerous brush with the Brother, the sinister ruler of Nabataean Petra, sends Falco and his girlfriend Helena on a fast camel-ride to Syria. Here they join a travelling theatre group, which keeps losing members in non-accidental drownings. The bad acting and poor audiences are almost as bad as the desert and its scorpions - then as the killer hovers, Falco tries to write a play.

©1996 Lindsey Davis (P)2014 Audible Ltd Crime Fiction Historical Mystery Fiction Espionage Crime
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A good story and plot was let down by the truly dreadful narration. To debunk what another reviewer has said, I am neither a friend of the author nor an enemy of the narrator. The narrator Gordon Griffin has a peculiarly irritating verbal habit of raising inflection at the end of most of his sentences, and inappropriately and randomly raised inflection elsewhere. It was so distracting that I could not concentrate fully on the story. I had read the book previously, so I know it to be well written, well characterised, and well plotted. The carefully read middle class English accent did not represent plebeian Marcus Didius Falco at all and was best suited to patrician Helena Justina. I don't particularly like Christian Rodska's narration either in the other Falco audio books (too rough), but it is certainly better than the narration in this book.

Good story, dreadful narrator

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I’m not sure if the book really was a lot more “waffle” than usual or if it was just the horrible reader. Gordon Griffin starts at a disadvantage, he just isn’t Falco. But a few inappropriate pauses and that lift at the end of sentences that turns a statement into a question and I found the book tedious; I would have ditched it but hubby was listening so I just went to sleep or got on with some chores.

Horrible reader

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This time with added sand snakes and comedy.
Britain saves Falcos life yet again. After providing the love of his life and giving him skills you would think he would be more grateful.
Super characterisation as usual with a ripping story.

More great Falco adventures

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I found this disappointing after earlier entries in the series. The story is thin and bulked out with so many asides that it reads like a Roman travel guide to the Middle East. The tone deaf narration doesn't help.

Weak story

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Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
I love the Falco books, but this one seemed too long for the story it was telling. It was still a good listen, but not so tightly written as other books in the series. Marcus and his girlfrend, Helena Justina go off to the Middle East in order to do a bit of casual spying for Rome and also to find a missing girl who has run away from her obligations as a musician. After finding the drowned body of a man, obviously murdered, they fall in with a travelling theatre company and Marcus takes the dead man's job of playwrite. They are accompanied by Musa, a priest, sent to keep an eye on them. There's another murder and an attempt on Musa's life and Marcus spends most of the book travelling from place to place with the company, writing lines that no one ever appreciates, and questioning suspects. There are a lot of the company's stops and performances that simply don't move the story forward, and though Marcus gets there in the end, it all seems a bit tedious. Gordon Griffin is not the most exciting narrator. I much prefer Christian Rodska's interpretation in the later books, or Anton Lesser in the BBC radio plays.

I love Falco books!

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