REVIEW: Murder in Purple and Gold by Lindsey Davis
The queen of historical crime brings chariot racing to life in all its gruesome and glamorous glory.
When Flavia Albia stumbles upon the murdered corpse of a young man near Rome’s famous Circus Maximus, she is about to embark on one of her most dangerous and complicated cases yet.
Rome and the Romans are obsessed with chariot racing. Lepo was the rising star of the Purples, a new team created by the psychotic Emperor Domitian with big money backing. Suspicion immediately falls on Lepo’s greatest rival, Agathon, a young man emerging from a rival team, the Golds. Convinced of his guilt, a lynch mob is hunting them.
The Gold faction hire Flavia to clear Agathon’s name, especially as he has an alibi for the night of the murder. But as Flavia soon finds out, nothing is at it seems in the dangerous and glamorous world of the charioteers, in which fortunes can be won or lost in seconds and violent death is always just one race away.
CW/TW – Animal harm
Dear Ms. Davis
Well of course when I read the blurb for this book, the first thing I thought of was the famous chariot race in the 1959 movie “Ben Hur.” It takes almost the entire book to get to a similar scene but yes, we finally get excitement in this book.
Upon returning to Rome after finishing up at the Bay of Naples in the last book, Flavia Albia needs some space and time alone. Anyone who’s ever driven a long way with a bunch of people will know. Of course while walking the dog, Albia finds a dead body – that of a young man, a boy really – stabbed in the neck with a falx which is the curved blade knife worn and used by charioteers if they need to cut themselves loose from their horses in a race.
The next morning her husband Tiberius Manlius, who is a fan of the Golds racing team, has fixed her up with the job of investigating the boy’s death. The murder victim raced for the Purples and suspicion is on a rising star of the Golds team, who wants Albia to prove their boy’s innocence. Before long Albia will learn far more about chariot racing than she ever wanted to know as she doggedly searches for the killer.
Albia and I learn all about ancient Roman chariot racing. There are six professional teams known by their colors and like most professional sports teams, there are fanatical followers who can, and will, debate race tactics, drivers, coaches, horses, past races and upcoming ones, and anything else related to their sport. Women also need not apply. As Albia knows, and cares, little for it, teaching her teaches the reader. I valiantly tried to keep the teams and people associated with them straight but after a while, it was a chore. There are also tons of secondary and tertiary characters – a few of whom we’ve seen in earlier books. Be prepared for this.
I finally decided to focus my attention on the details of Rome and people close to Albia. Rodan the worthless doorman has run off (good riddance), dim Dromo still can’t do a hand’s turn per day, Albia’s younger teen sisters have discovered the latest hot beauty salon in Rome filled with the wealthy Real Housewives of Rome and the spoiled daughter of a wagon driver who made good, Romans who want all the salacious gossip eagerly read the Gazette which has many anonymous writers who send in pieces and chase down tips, at the end the household adds another cheeky scruff, and maybe soon Albia will be sharing some important information with her husband.
Along the way Albia steadily, dare I say stodgily, tramps across Rome (except when she hires a chair – and there are lots of chair carriers in the story, too) trying to winkle out information and discover who might have stabbed poor Lepo. The field is wide open and motives are plenty. One added bit of “oh, dear” is that the two main racing factions involved – the Golds and the Purples – were started by their Master and God, squirrely Domitian whom you do not want to upset or even attract the notice of.
When reading a murder mystery I do try to play along at home and put the facts and clues together to come up with whodunnit. Here, I realized about halfway through that I wasn’t going to be able to do that. Honestly I had no clue. Not a stinking clue until page 357 of 395 pages when we’re basically told. The motive has been hinted at but the true details don’t come out until right before Race Time! Now that was exciting. I heartily approve of how the race ends and what Albia gets afterwards? That’s nice, too. I wonder what will happen with Euthales?
So I enjoyed seeing how little some things (social media, gossip) have changed since then and now. Watching the swirling chaos of the Albia + Tiberius household is always fun. Falco and Helena Justina make appearances. Thank you for the Author’s Preface. But the overfill of chariot racing facts and personnel was just a bit too much. B-
~Jayne
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I preordered this book from Amazon and I am truly puzzled. First, the prelude of reading the entire ” This was no generated by AI” blurb which of course, makes me wonder if parts of it were generated by AI. It would certainly account for what seems to be a shallower depth of information on the murder that normally is given by Davis. It was also very disturbing that in the hardback copy I received last month ends at page 361, which is abruptly ended on an incomplete chariot race-literally ended with a comma. Your review references the book as having 395 pages! So either I’m just special and got a book where I solve the mystery on my own OR something very hinky is ongoing with the US printer of this book. I emailed Severn and have yet to get a reply. BTW, I did use Grok which led me to this site because I’m genuinely puzzled and the way this book ended, for me, was pretty dissatisfying.
I forgot to mark the notify me on my post.
@Ellen Kudlicki: Honestly from what I know about her, my bet is that Lindsey Davis does not use AI. She’s always said she does her own research and forbids fans from sending her ideas for possible plots as she won’t use them.
Sounds like something hinky happened with your book copy because the story does not end in the middle of the race. I’d be pissed about this if I paid $29 for a hardback.
I agree that there wasn’t a whole lot about the murder but there was way too many facts about chariot racing.