Lindsey Davis is a British author.

The first Falco book, The Silver Pigs, won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel award in 1989. Lindsey has won several awards, including the Crimewriters’ Association Dagger in the Library, Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, as well as the Crimewriters’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 2011. The city of Rome honoured her with the Premio Colosseo for “enhancing the image of Rome” in 2010.

She has written two series of crime novels set in ancient Rome: one with Marcus Didius Falco, an informer, or private eye (69-77 AD). The second series picks up with his adopted daughter Flavia Albia as the informer, with the first novel set in 89 AD.

Lindsey has also written standalone novels, set in ancient Rome as well as during the British civil war in the 17th century.

Talking About Books interviewed Lindsey on why she chose ancient Rome to write about and the position of women in that period.

TAB: Why did you choose to set your books in ancient Rome?

LD: Because no one wanted to publish what I wrote in other periods, and at the time (unbelievably now) I knew of no popular fiction being written about the ancient world. I naively believed an author should be original.

TAB: Your books have incredible detail about ancient Rome—how people lived, how publishers, politicians, landlords and banks functioned, and how slaves were treated. And since several of the Falco books are set outside Rome—in Britain and Egypt, for example—there is a lot of detail about life in those countries too. How were you able to research and find so much information on that period?

LD: When I began, in the 1980s, there was no internet. I read books, looked at pictures and maps, visited sites, libraries and museums, visited places. This is the only way I know to do research—find things out for yourself. Follow leads. Be absolutely thorough. But then you have to use what you know, not to show off but to give depth to your storytelling.

TAB: Falco is one of my favourite fictional characters—he’s smart, funny and resourceful. How did Falco come to you?

LD: Imagination, based on knowledge of people and the world. He also overturns stereotypes.

TAB: Flavia Albia is such a vivid and memorable character. How did you think her up and why did you choose to give Albia her own series?

LD: I had been writing about Falco, which meant in the first person as Falco for 20 years. I was ready for a change. I had several characters in mind who could perhaps be used for a follow-on series, but Albia fitted best. She was female, an outsider in Rome, and already established as my kind of feisty character. I moved on 12 years from the last Falco to bring her to an interesting age, used what I had researched of the period of Domitian for Master and God (a standalone) and set off.

TAB: One of the things that makes Flavia Albia interesting is that she is from Britain and has had a rough childhood, so although she is now part of a Roman family, she is also an outsider. Is there is a difference in seeing Rome through Albia’s eyes rather than Falco’s?

LD: Yes, as I just said these things were attractive. I think her background allows her to judge in a different way from Falco, who is at heart an archetypal Roman (as he had to be, to establish the period when I started). I particularly enjoy having her comment derisively on myths and other things that are dear to classicists but not in fact to me.

TAB: Your first book about Rome was The Course of Honour, the story of Emperor Vespasian and his mistress Antonia Caenis. The Falco books are set during his reign. What is it that draws you to Vespasian and his period?

LD: Vespasian himself, the ideal “good bloke” who restores what idiot Julio-Claudians have destroyed, and who valued women. This is the start of the golden age of imperial Rome. There is a lot of primary material surviving from the period, some of it satirical which I like, and of course what we have from Pompeii.

TAB: You have strong women characters—not just Helena Justina and Flavia Albia, but many others through the books, including Falco’s mother. What was the position of women in Rome and how much power were they actually able to wield?

LD: Legally, women were in the power of their menfolk—but there is plenty of evidence that they could own property, go to court, influence their children or announce their own divorce. The biggest building in the Forum at Pompeii was gifted by a woman and is named after her. I am writing about ordinary people not the tiny aristocracy. For Albia, in particular, I’m using the idea of the family unit: husband and wife as shown side by side on tombstones, of equal size in the image so of shared status in reality, pictured with the symbols of their family business.

TAB: You have also written about the English civil war, which is quite different from Rome. Why did you choose this period?

LD: The Civil War was what I really wanted to write about. It was a period of enormous change, with the emergence of radical ideas that went on to influence not just our own society. It was a time when anyone and everyone could, and did, write and publish their thoughts.

TAB: What drew you to writing historical crime novels?

LD: The need to pay the mortgage.

TAB: When did you start writing? Is it something you have always done?

LD: I started writing before I had even learned all the alphabet. I didn’t think you could earn your living that way, but now I know otherwise, it’s the natural path for me. I had a “real” job for 13 years, but that was a good way to learn about people who have no alternative and to practise writing clear and compelling stuff.

TAB: Thank you so much for doing the interview. I have been reading your books over the years and have thoroughly enjoyed them—and learned a lot about ancient Rome.

Read my review of Venus in Copper.

Go to Lindsey Davis’s website.