Lindsey Davis' mysteries, set in Flavian Rome, feature the scruffy, lower-class, underpaid informer Falco and his girl friend and later wife, Helena, the daughter of a senator. How they come together forms the subplot of the first of the series, Silver Pigs. The primary plot takes Falco to Britain and the silver mines in order to learn who has been bilking the emperor.

Falco really gets into his role in Silver Pigs. He persuades Vitalis, a Roman stationed in Britain, to pretend he's a wayward slave in need of the grueling punishment of the silver mines. There he hopes to uncover the means by which lead with silver veins (silver pigs) have mysteriously disappeared without being missed. Generations of mismanagement provide part of the answer, but in recent years men close to Helena, her senatorial father, and the Emperor Vespasian have become so heavily involved in the schemes that Helena's much loved young cousin was murdered to keep her quiet.

Helena rescues Falco from a dungeon for slaves in the silver mines where he has been left to die with a broken leg, which he acquired on his own, and broken ribs given him by the lecherous overseer Cornix.

Silver Pigs may not be so different from the other Lindsey Davis mysteries, but because it is the only one in which Falco is unattached, it appears to share as much with the Jonathan Gash mysteries (which feature a scruffy, underpaid twentieth century antiques expert named Lovejoy) as with later Falco stories.

Both "detectives" take delight in women and have skills or other opportunities that would take most people further in the material world, but because Falco and Lovejoy are forever doing favors -- in Falco's case, giving most of his income to the family of his late brother -- they perennially scrape by.

Lindsey Davis' books are strictly for entertainment. Unlike Steven Saylor, whose stories revolve around actual events, Davis pays scant attention to the historical events of the time. She does, however, provide a sense of place, whether it be the biting climate of (her native, but alien to Falco) Britain, or the lethal byways and milling wagons bearing repugnant loads all over the city of Rome. In common with Steven Saylor's works, the characters in Lindsey Davis' mature and become more fully rounded with later episodes.