LINDSEY DAVIS

1999 brings the publication of One Virgin Too Many, eleventh in the Marcus Didius Falco series of detective novels set in Imperial Rome. This is the third story in the 'partners' group, where Falco at last achieves the respectable status that has so long eluded him. For me, too, there has been great excitement as Two for the Lions, now published in paperback, was announced as the first winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, a brand new award for historical crime.

I was born and brought up in Birmingham, read English at Oxford, then joined the Civil Service. After thirteen years, a novel I had written to cheer myself up was runner-up for the Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize, which encouraged me to leave my job and try to become a writer. I was accepted for the government's Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and there- after classified as a Small Business, although it took years of struggle to achieve success. I had romantic serials commissioned for Woman's Realm, then changed to writing about the Romans with The Course of Honour, the remarkable true love story of the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress Antonia Caenis. My research into Imperial Rome then inspired The Silver Pigs, the first in the Falco series about a Roman informer in the AD70s, which has now attracted a devoted readership. The Silver Pigs won the Authors' Club Best First Novel for 1989, and I was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library (for the author "whose work has given most pleasure") in 1995. An unusual thrill for a crime novelist came when I was invited to be Honorary President of the UK Classical Association in 1997/8, as a result of which Falco achieved the rare distinction of appearing in a Times Leader column!

My books are published in the UK and US, and translated into many other languages. I write occasional short stories and articles, and I review books for The Good Book Guide. Last year my short story 'The party may yet be living' appeared in the Ellis Peters Memorial Anthology, Past Poisons (published by Headline) and I introduced Green for Danger by Christianna Brand in the Pan Cassic Crime series. I am a committee member of the UK Crimewriters Association.