Flavia Albia was born in Londinium. She was adopted by Marcus Didius Falco and Helena Justina and raised in Rome, where she grew up surrounded by her father’s cases and her mother’s sharp opinions. She became a private informer — the same job Falco had done for decades — and took on work in a Rome that had become more dangerous under Emperor Domitian.
Lindsey Davis launched Albia’s series with The Ides of April (2013), picking up roughly where the Falco novels left off in terms of the Roman world but shifting the political climate. Domitian is a paranoid ruler, and working as an informer under his reign carries more risk than it did under Vespasian. Albia brings her own perspective to the trade — as a woman and an adopted Briton, she navigates Roman society differently than her father did.
The series runs to 15 novels through There Will Be Bodies (2025). Familiar faces from the Falco books appear throughout, but Albia is firmly the lead.
Reading Order
See the complete Flavia Albia Mystery reading order for all books in the series.