Nemesis

Witty, wisecracking Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is back (after the best-selling Alexandria), and his story just got darker: this book opens with the death of Falco's newborn son and Falco's father. Sure, Pa was a reprobate, and he left Falco a hefty inheritance. But with that inheritance comes the headache of managing it, which means (among other things) sorting out a contract regarding 111 statues Pa was jobbing for the new amphitheater. Inconveniently, the art dealer from whom Pa purchased the statues has vanished, as has his wife; seems they'd had words with the Claudii, a notorious family of freed slaves living beyond the law in the fly-infested Pontine Marshes. Meanwhile, Falco's buddy Petronius Longus is investigating a nasty murder, which sends them both into the marshlands, where they are one-upped by the Claudii and then removed from the case. Who's protecting the Claudii back in Rome, and why are Chief Spy Anacrites's two ugly bodyguards dogging Falco?