{"id":416,"date":"2006-04-24T21:14:21","date_gmt":"2006-04-25T01:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=416"},"modified":"2024-04-07T20:18:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T00:18:49","slug":"davis_03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2006\/04\/davis_03\/","title":{"rendered":"Davis, Lindsey: (03) Venus in Copper<\/cite>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think the plot of Lindsey Davis’s Venus in Copper<\/cite><\/strong> is genuinely tighter than that of Shadows in Bronze<\/cite><\/a>; it’s not just that I was sleepy and uncritical today, since usually when I’m sleepy I have less patience for slow books—they don’t do as good a job at keeping me awake. This book picks up immediately after Shadows<\/cite>, but its plot mostly stands alone. Falco is hired by two women; they and their husbands share a household with a third man, who’s just become betrothed to a woman who’s buried three husbands and profited each time she did so. They want him to find out her price for leaving, but her betrothed dies of poison—before<\/em> the wedding.<\/p>\n

Falco sticks with the case even after his clients want him to go away, feeling an obligation. Meanwhile, he’s got a larceny charge hanging over his head, a new apartment to furnish, a great big turbot to cook . . . oh, and there’s Helena Justina, of course.<\/p>\n

The plot is not far from being over the top, but at least it’s not insubstantial. I deeply disapprove of what happens with the woman Falco’s hired to investigate, but other than that, I enjoyed it. There’s a lot of Helena Justina—she gets to question a witness for Falco, and is competent as would be expected—and the scene where Falco cooks the turbot is pretty funny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think the plot of Lindsey Davis’s Venus in Copper is genuinely tighter than that of Shadows in Bronze; it’s not just that I was sleepy and uncritical today, since usually when I’m sleepy I have less patience for slow books—they don’t do as good a job at keeping me awake. This book picks up … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Davis, Lindsey: (03) Venus in Copper<\/cite>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,101,6],"tags":[186],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-marcus-didius-falco","category-mystery","tag-davis-lindsey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2908,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/2908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}