Silver Pigs

Winner of the Best First Novel award from the Authors' Club, and debut of the Didius Falco mystery series.
It is A.D. 70, when Roman P.I. Marcus Didius Falco runs into comely Sosia Camillina on the steps of the Forum. It seems she's being chased by a few unsavories for a stockpile of silver pigs--silver ingots--but Falco wants more information. What he gets is a whiff of treason and a one-way ticket to his own funeral pyre....
"It has mystery, pace, wit, fascinating scholarship, and above all, two protagonists for whom, by the end, I feel genuine affection, and want to meet again."
Ellis Peters