See review for book 8.

This story was made more interesting, despite its length, by the fact that I have been in the area in which it is set, just south of Hadrian's Wall, at least a couple of times.

I am always surprised too at how Ruth Downie makes the characters and situations feel so modern, despite the fact that historically it is set in Roman Britain, and life would have been horrendously primitive by our standards. ( )

This is the second installment of a historical crime fiction series set in the Ancient Roman Empire. Hapless Roman Army medic Gaius Petreius Ruso has volunteered to leave his post in Deva, where he has served the past eight months, and travel with a contingent of the army to the northern borders of Roman Britannia to a fort at Ulucium. Ruso explained to his best friend and colleague Valens:

“There’s a couple of centuries [military units consisting of (originally) 100 men] going up to help revamp the fort, fix their plumbing, and encourage the taxpayers.”

Ruso was persuaded to go in part because he was frustrated with his assignments in Deva, and in part because of his girlfriend, the former slave Tilla. Tilla came from the region around Ulucium and she wanted to visit her home. She also claimed it was a beautiful area.

When they arrived, Ruso found out that the regular medic was ill, so the fort Prefect [administrative official] assigned Ruso to fill in, and while he was at it, to get the infirmary in shape. Ruso quickly discovered that “a country outpost serving six hundred men [was not] run in the same way as a legionary hospital serving five thousand.” And this was not a positive difference.

Ruso had one more complicated job as well, regarding the recent murder of Felix, a soldier at the post. Ruso was to examine the body of Felix and write up his findings in a “politically correct” way. The problem was that the regular medic, Thessalus, confessed to the murder. The Prefect believed Thessalus was innocent but had gone insane, telling Ruso “we need to get him to withdraw his confession before anyone hears about it, and find out who told him how the victim was killed.” The Prefect intended to arrest a native believed actually to have committed the crime. But the Prefect didn't want the natives to think the man arrested was just a scapegoat, which would arouse their ire. So in essence, Ruso needed to solve the crime. Ruso said he would do his best, musing “he had a sloppy health service to shape up, a politically sensitive postmortem to carry out, and a deranged colleague. The holiday was definitely over.”

While Ruso was occupied with all of that, Tilla went to her former home, which was nearby, and met up again with her former boyfriend. Altogether, Ruso was very unhappy, and stuck in a politically sensitive quagmire.

Evaluation: I am thoroughly enjoying the “adventures” of Ruso and Tilla, even though both of them are frustrating and prone to miscommunicating with one another. Moreover, the Ancient Roman Empire is a cruel and violent place, and Ruso is so often clueless he usually ends up on the wrong end of the stick. But the books are informative, funny, and entertaining, and I fully intend to keep reading the series. ( )

I am a sucker for historical mysteries especially when the historical period is prior to the 15th century. Think the Cadfael books by Ellis Peters and Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death. (Although the Shardlake series set in the 16th century are pretty fine as well.) This book is set well before those ones in the first century AD when Emperor Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire. It is perhaps not as good as the ones I have mentioned but still quite interesting for shedding light on the Roman occupation of Britain.

Doctor Gaius Petrius Ruso is attached to the Twentieth Legion which is heading north. Ruso has a slave housekeeper accompanying him. Tilla is from the area near where Ruso will be stationed. She was kidnapped by some northern brigands and the rest of her family was killed. Some three years later she came into Ruso's keeping. Tilla warms Ruso's bed as well as cooking and looking after him. He treats her fairly well but she is still a slave. When the army reaches Coria they find that a trumpeter stationed there has been killed and beheaded. It looks like the work of a native rebel but the doctor working in the fort of Coria has gone to the commander and confessed he is the perpetrator. Ruso is asked to temporarily fill in as the fort's doctor and also to examine the body. Ruso takes his mandate as rather more encompassing than that and he starts to investigate the trumpeter's movements prior to his death. It seems that there might be motives other than stirring up a rebellion for killing this particular man. The fort commander wants the case dealt with before the governor arrives in a few days. While Ruso is looking into the murder Tilla goes to check out her family's farm and finds that an old lover, Rianorix, is living there. As it is late Tilla stays with him overnight and so, when the Roman soldiers come to arrest him for the trumpeter's murder, they bring Tilla in as well. Ruso is quite jealous and the reader begins to suspect that he feels more for Tilla than the usual slaveowner would. Tilla swears that Rianorix did not kill the trumpeter. Will Ruso let his jealousy sway his investigation or will he look into all the possible motives?

I really liked Tilla who is feisty and smart. She seems likely to succeed at whatever she wants to do. Ruso seems more bumbling than the usual sleuth but that is part of his charm. I learned a little about the Roman Empire in Britain. I'm pretty sure that I visited this area on my first trip to Britain in 1968 which makes the book a little more special. ( )

Gaius Petreius Ruso, a medicus with the Twentieth Legion in Rome's Britain, travels to a small outpost near where his slave girl, Tilla, lived before her abduction by a rival tribe. When he arrives, he finds that a "stag man" has been hounding the Roman troops there, and a man has been killed in the traditional way of the tribes. There are several possible suspects, including the doctor of the clinic, so Ruso is asked to put the clinic in order as well as help solve the mystery.

I enjoy the setting the most in these books, as Downie has clearly done her research but inserts it so cleanly into the story that you almost don't notice. Ruso and Tilla are starting to get on my nerves; he's a bit of a bumbling buffoon who won't really listen to her, and she chooses not to tell him things and will answer his questions exactly rather than addressing what he actually means. The close third-person narration mostly follows Ruso, but also Tilla at times, making the reader more aware of what's going on than the investigator. I didn't find the ending very satisfying - and admittedly, I'm very much not a fan of the "issues we could've figured out if we had a five-minute conversation" plot device and since I was listening to it, I do tend to miss details and may not have picked up on things that were more subtle - and I probably will stick to histories of Britain at this point. But the dialogue is sometimes quite humorous and Simon Vance does an excellent job narrating, as always. ( )