A Dying Light in Corduba — Lindsey Davis

Surprisingly, nobody is poisoned at the Society of Olive Oil Producers banquet. The attempted murder of Rome's Chief Spy occurs immediately afterward. Suspicion, like the Italian night, quickly falls on the dinner's sinuous dancer, a lady who has already left for Corduba, Spain. Naturally, Marcus Didius Falco, the Philip Marlowe of Roman detectives, is dispatched to follow her. But he has pledged to stay with his pregnant, patrician wife, Helena, until she gives birth. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, Falco makes a perhaps fatal mistake: He brings Helena with him to a terra incognita of olives and intrigue, where a dies irae and a remorseless killer wait...