by Lindsey Davis
Release Date: July 22, 2025
2025 Minotaur Books
Ebook ARC; 368 Pages
ISBN: 978-1250906731
ASIN: B0DH4FJ4DJ
Audiobook: B0DSQ71DZ8
Genre: Fiction / Historical / Mystery
Source: Review copy from publisher
3 / 5 Stars
Summary
Ten years after the eruption of Vesuvius, the
surrounding countryside lies buried and barren. But the destroyed cities
and luxury villas on the Bay of Naples are not utterly lost.
Flavia Albia and her husband Tiberius Manlius are tasked with restoring one villa and identifying any surviving remains.
What they unearth is beyond disturbing. When the volcano erupted some people were left to their fate here, unable to escape. They included the previous owner, Publius Primus - laid out carefully and covered by falling ash.
Flavia Albia and her husband Tiberius Manlius are tasked with restoring one villa and identifying any surviving remains.
What they unearth is beyond disturbing. When the volcano erupted some people were left to their fate here, unable to escape. They included the previous owner, Publius Primus - laid out carefully and covered by falling ash.
My Thoughts
There Will be Bodies is the next book in the Flavia Albia series, and while I found this one interesting due to the descriptions of the aftereffects of the Vesuvius eruption, I did find the actual mystery to be somewhat less compelling than in previous books and that there really wasn't much to the 'investigation'.
One of the things I truly do like about this series, and the concept does continue in this book, is the very layered discussions around women and their roles within the Roman Empire. A lot of this is done through Flavia's voice and I enjoy her sarcastic inner monologue with regards to what she sees and her interpretation of events compared to how the men are dealing with things. It is always interesting to see how she manipulates those around her to get what she wants; women have certainly developed some skilled negotiation/manipulation techniques over the years and the men don't even know what hit them. I have definitely become more cynical and sarcastic as I've grown older so I empathize with Flavia and the women during this time period who didn't have as much freedom as people would think and had to rely on men to make decisions for them, decisions they didn't necessarily agree with. The author uses Flavia's voice to discuss the problematic nature of women and other people who were struggling and this is definitely a strength to these novels.
While the descriptions of the aftermath of the eruption were wonderful and personally, I don't think I've read too many of those, the investigation itself was fairly predictable, and somewhat mundane. A lot of the actual investigative work got lost within the work Flavia and her husband were doing at the villa and if I hadn't read the previous entries to this series, I wouldn't have realized how shallow the investigation was compared to previous books. There were really no twists and turns and few attempts to try to deter the reader from figuring out the culprit and I was left feeling disappointed in how everything turned out.
Verdict
There Will be Bodies is the first Flavia Albia book to have its setting outside Rome and I am still not sure how I feel about that although I was fascinated with the descriptions of the area around Vesuvius after the eruption. And while I enjoyed the descriptions of what Flavia and her husband were doing to restore the villa, the mystery itself was a disappointment as it was predictable and frankly, this was probably my least favourite of the series so far. If you are a new reader to this series, you could read this as a standalone, but I do recommend starting from the beginning to get a richer experience of the characters and their life. Even better, start with the Marcus Didius Falco series, the series about Flavia's father, to get the full immersive experience.
