There Will Be Bodies

There Will Be Bodies
Cover of 1st UK hardback edition 2025
AuthorLindsey Davis
SeriesFlavia Albia
Genrehistorical fiction, crime fiction
PublisherHodder & Stoughton
Publication date
3 April 2025
Publication placeUK
ISBN978-1399719636
Preceded byDeath on the Tiber 

There Will Be Bodies is a forthcoming historical crime novel by British writer Lindsey Davis, the thirteenth in her Flavia Albia series. It will be published in the UK on 3 April 2025 by Hodder & Stoughton (ISBN 978-1399719636)[1] and in the United States on 22 July 2025 by Minotaur Books (ISBN 978-1250906731).[2]

The book is set in Stabiae, near Mount Vesuvius, Italy, in 89AD, ten years after its eruption.[3] Flavia's husband's uncle has bought a villa there, and while working on its reconstruction Flavia and her husband find the body of its previous owner: not overwhelmed in the eruption but laid out in a locked store room.[1][2]

The cover of the first UK hardback edition shows a battered sculptured head half-buried in glowing embers.[1] Davis has said that it represents Tyche, goddess of fortune and owner of the first set of dice, wearing a mural crown.[4] The American first edition cover shows a woman with a dagger looking through the atrium of a villa towards a man with his back to her: Vesuvius is visible in the distance.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c "There Will Be Bodies [publisher's announcement]". Hoder & Stoughton. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  2. ^ a b c "There Will Be Bodies [publisher's announcement]". Macmillan. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  3. ^ "Lindsey's Page". Lindsey Davis. Archived from the original on 9 October 2024. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  4. ^ In official newsletter, 6 January 2025, from publishers Hodder and Stoughton: better ref will follow in due time.


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