Deadly Election by Lindsey Davis

Genre: Historical Mystery

Setting: Ancient Rome in the First Century AD

First Sentence: Never hold an auction in July.

Lindsey Davis is the author of the acclaimed Marcus Didius Falco historical mystery series.  The Flavia Albia mystery series is a spin-off of the Falco novels.  Deadly Election is the third novel of the Flavia Albia series which currently runs to four books.

Albia was adopted by Falco and his wife Helena.  From these two parents, Albia learned to be a very independent woman.

Now, Albia is on her own in Rome.  She participates in the family's auction business.  And, following in her father's footsteps, she is an investigator.

In a recent auction, a strong box that was sold by the family was found to contain a dead body.  No one knows who he was or how he came to be in the safe.

Albia, along with her friend the local magistrate Faustus, start asking questions.

The trail is a long and complicated one which includes auctions, an election, and a toxic family with a complicated family tree.

While Albia and Faustus work together, Albia begins to fall in love with Faustus.  Which is interesting because she once stabbed Faustus in the hand.

Will Albia and Faustus learn who was in the strongbox?

And will they untangle a convoluted family tree to find out who wanted him dead, and why?

For me this was an okay book.  The large number of characters with very similar names made it hard to keep track of who is who.

And since the main character is a woman, there is a lot of talk about emotions and relationships.  Which slows the plot down.

However, if you are a fan of historical mysteries set in the Roman Era, you should enjoy this novel.