Fatal Legacy (Flavia Albia #11), by Lindsey Davis

Wills are tricky business, even under the best of circumstances. This is a book that takes a bit of time to develop, where there are a lot of plots all connected together, and where our titular debt collector seeks to bring about family peace while also dealing with complicated rivalries and actions going back generations, all while the very will in question is detained until the last possible moment. As far as a novel goes, this one is easy to read, though as it manages to deal with contemporary identity politics (in a way that also shows Roman decadence), it will not be to everyone’s taste. What appears at first to two families fighting each other ends up being two branches of one much more complicated family, with a third contender interested in raising some questions that appear to hint at even future business to deal with. It is unclear to what extent the complicated message about family here seems to be designed for corrupt ages in crisis, as this novel hints at the Roman politics of the time, with a time period that is near the end of Domitian’s reign and with a look forward, somewhat prophetically, to the period of the five adoptive emperors, with the appearance of Trajan as a minor character in the novel.

If you look at this book on the largest scale, it tells a complex story about family. Some 40 years ago, a wealthy man died in the aftermath of a shocking scene where his double life was exposed. The division of family wealth between the two branches of his family seem custom-made to bring about problems between the two branches of the family. Fights over the ownership or usufruct of a particular almond tree farm at the end of its usable lifespan have led to acts of violence and a pretend eloping that fails in large part because of the shady behavior of others involved in the scheme. One side of the family is given ownership of a building while the other side has generous renting terms, but pitting the two sides against each other over and over again in various ways. Attempts to unite the families in marriage have similarly failed to bring about peace between the two branches of this family, and against all odds Flavia Albia manages to piece together enough of what is going on between the slaves and relationships that entangle these relatives to bring about a final effort at reconciliation that, somehow, manages to include a bit of justice and mercy to make things right.

Still, if this book is all about family, and family in a particularly complicated way, it is unclear to what extent this point will resonate. The author shows herself aware of Roman law and practice, but if the author wants the reader to root for corrupt dealings, this book doesn’t lead the reader to celebrate what is going on, but it’s rather the sort of book that forces us to confront the corrupt and shadowy dealings of our own time. If our time appears to be less out of the ordinary than it would otherwise, it certainly does not make one nostalgic about the corruption of imperial Rome. For the same sort of complexity that this novel explores, and even wallows in, is the sort of corruption that our own society specializes in. This includes, but is not limited, to homosexuality, people with multiple secret partners stashed in one area or another, faked identity documents to give people citizenships that they do not deserve and which they abuse, fraud, murder, and affairs that border on and even cross the line into incestuous relations. When readers pick up this novel, are they going to want to see people behave like they do nowadays, or are they going to look forward to a pleasant mystery novel that takes them away from the unpleasant aspects of the real world? I’m not sure if this novel is enough of an escape to make it as enjoyable a read as the author would wish.