See review for book 8.

Gaius Petreius Ruso is a career soldier in the Roman army and has recently transferred to the 20th Legion in Deva (modern day Chester) from Africa. Things are very different in Britannia. Not only is the weather dismal but the locals are rebellious and they speak British. Ruso is recovering from a divorce and the death of his father in Gaul. His father has left ruinous debts and so Ruso is constantly trying to send money to his brother who is looking after the family farm in Gaul.

His money seems to be going the wrong way. His lodgings are near the hospital but are filthy, and due to be demolished. He desperately needs someone to cook and clean, but instead ends up rescuing a British slave at a price he can ill afford, and she has a broken arm.

Girls from a local cafe/bordello keep turning up dead, and Ruso becomes a reluctant detective as he tries to work out what is happening. And then his new slave Tilla runs away and Ruso finds he has got used to having her around.

Much of this introduction to life on the frontier of the Roman Empire is seen from the point of view of the conquered rather than the conquerors. We see at first hand the impact of slave trafficking as well as the way in which the conquerors try to impose the "Roman way" onto the locals. The author has created sufficiently likeable central characters in Ruso and Tilla for me to investigate where things go in the second book in the series. ( )

One of my favorite aspects of these books is the author's recommended reading suggestions at the end. A good read. I admire the author's deftness leaving open Ruso's next destination. ( )

This is the third installment of an entertaining historical crime fiction series set in the Ancient Roman Empire.

This book begins with hapless do-gooder Roman Army medic Gaius Petreius Ruso breaking his foot while trying to save a child who had been dropped into the river by five drunk legionaries.

His friend and colleague Valens prescribed that he must go easy on it for a good six weeks, “and no wine, of course.” (Part of the fun of this series is learning about the various “cures” used by people in Ancient Rome. Since the author also highlights the food they eat, it seems inevitable, even without murder, that they would need a lot of fixing up.) Valens also delivered a letter to him marked urgent, that read “Lucius to Gaius. Come home, brother.” Since Ruso can’t do anything else for six weeks, he agreed, even though his home in the south of Gaul was over a thousand miles away from his current post in Deva. (Ancient Gaul included the area that is modern France.) He was granted a medical discharge. (It was now June, and his contract with the Legion would be up in January. He had the option to sign on again when he got back from Gaul, and Valens assured Ruso he would want to. Ruso wasn’t so sure.)

Ruso has been living with Tilla, a “Barbarian” from Britannia, for the past two years. He knew he should have found a way to mention Tilla to his family before now, but he had not, and now she was “about to become a surprise.”

When Ruso went to see Tilla’s home in the previous installment, Tilla found her memories didn’t quite live up to the new reality there. Analogously in this book, Ruso has been remembering his home through rosy glasses; a vision dispelled almost as soon as he got there. As Tilla mused in the previous book, Terra Incognita:

“As far as she had been able to work out, the medicus’s family lived in a fine house whose roof baked beneath the everlasting sunshine of southern Gaul, while its foundations stood in a deep and perilous pool of debt. . . . She knew that he sent most of his money home to his brother, and she knew that it was never enough.”

Moreover, to call Ruso’s family “dysfunctional” is an understatement.

In any event, when they arrive, they once again get involved in a murder case, and once again, Ruso, with a lot of help from Tilla, finally figures out what happened, saving his own skin by doing so.

Discussion: Ruso continues to bumble through regular and extracurricular responsibilities, trying to do the right thing and right wrongs while everyone else is trying to take advantage of him. Ruso realizes too that he hadn’t done right by Tilla by not smoothing her way with his family:

“You asked me once if I was ashamed of you.”

“Are you?”

“I’m the one who should be ashamed. I should have introduced you better.”

“And what would you have said?”

“He paused. ‘I would have said, This is Tilla. She is the bravest and most beautiful woman I know, and I don’t deserve her.”

“She smiled. ‘All these things are true.’”

Evaluation: I am greatly enjoying this series, even though many of the characters and events described are most unsavory. But I love the medical information, and the author also shows us how the class and gender disparities of the time played out, which is always interesting. The plot of this book also weaves in the growing appeal of Christianity in the Roman Empire, with the characters who adhere to its tenets explaining just what it is about the religion that attracts them. ( )

Ruso has just injured his foot attempting to rescue a boy from the river (the boy manages to save himself) when an uncharacteristically brief and urgent letter arrives from his brother Lucius: Come home immediately. In a panic about what new disaster is so awful Lucius won't even hint at it, he wangles extended medical leave, and he and Tilla pack up and head for southern Gaul.

Their arrival is a complete surprise, and not a welcome one. One of their major creditors is threatening a bankruptcy action against them, and the absence of the real property owner--Ruso--on public service had been legal protection against a seizure order. Lucius vehemently denies having sent the letter; if he'd thought his elder brother might be contemplating a return home, he'd have sent word not to come. Ruso's return makes them vulnerable to real financial disaster and disgrace.

Things only get worse when that same creditor drops dead during a private conversation with Ruso, poisoned.

Along with putting his investigation skills to work clearing himself and the other prime suspect, his ex-wife Claudia (now the widow of the dead man) of murder, Ruso has to figure out what happened to Lucius' brother-in-law Justinian, steward to Claudia's father, Probus. Justinian had been sent along on a merchant ship to watch over Probus' investment, but the ship has vanished. Ruso and Lucius' stepmother Aria wants to do new, expensive "improvements" to the house, and is certain Lucius is just being stingy and unreasonable in not letting her. And Ruso's half-sister Marcia wants her dowry settled so that she can marry.

Or rather, he discovers, so that she can buy the freedom of a gladiator so that he can marry her.

Oh, and Ruso had never mentioned Tilla in his letters home, and Aria, determined to marry him off to the rich widow next door, is not pleased and does her best to make sure Tilla knows it.

This is, like its predecessors, and excellent mystery, with wonderful characters and nicely twisty plotting. As always, both Tilla and Ruso show real talent for getting themselves into trouble in their attempts to do the right thing, and confuse each other thoroughly trying to communicate across the barriers of their cultural differences.

Recommended. ( )