Lindsey Davis,
historical novelist, was born in
Birmingham, England during the 1950s. Having taken a degree in
English literature at
Oxford University (
Lady Margaret Hall), she became a civil servant. Her first novel featuring the
Roman "
detective",
Marcus Didius Falco,
The Silver Pigs, was published in
1989 and was the start of her runaway success as a writer of
historical whodunnits. A further thirteen Falco novels have followed, as well as a "straight" historical novel set in the same period (the reign of
Vespasian),
The Course of Honour (1998). She has won many literary awards.