12/1/2023 0 Comments Ruth downie author![]() ![]() These are mostly in Britannia but in Persona Non Grata they visit Ruso’s family in Gaul, and in Vita Brevis they go to Rome. Despite the risks to Ruso’s career, their precarious financial situation, and even their lives, they are unable to back down, driven by principle, personal ties or just plain cussedness.Įach book takes place in a different location. The plots are deliciously twisty and invariably involve Ruso and Tilla taking on people who are dangerous, or politically connected, or both. Together, they find themselves stumbling across crimes, which they investigate and solve. He takes her in as a servant but over time their relationship deepens. Tilla is a Briton who he rescues from slavery in the first novel, Medicus. Gaius Petreius Ruso is a Roman army doctor, initially stationed in Deva (modern-day Chester). But the books are informative, funny, and entertaining, and I fully intend to keep reading the series.Ruth Downie’s crime series set in Roman Britain is my current favourite comfort read. 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. Altogether, Ruso was very unhappy, and stuck in a politically sensitive quagmire.Įvaluation: I am thoroughly enjoying the “adventures” of Ruso and Tilla, even though both of them are frustrating and prone to miscommunicating with one another. 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. 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. So in essence, Ruso needed to solve the crime. But the Prefect didn’t want the natives to think the man arrested was just a scapegoat, which would arouse their ire. 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. ![]() The problem was that the regular medic, Thessalus, confessed to the murder. Ruso was to examine the body of Felix and write up his findings in a “politically correct” way. Ruso had one more complicated job as well, regarding the recent murder of Felix, a soldier at the post. Ruso quickly discovered that “a country outpost serving six hundred men run in the same way as a legionary hospital serving five thousand.” And this was not a positive difference. When they arrived, Ruso found out that the regular medic was ill, so the fort Prefect assigned Ruso to fill in, and while he was at it, to get the infirmary in shape. ![]() She also claimed it was a beautiful area. Tilla came from the region around Ulucium and she wanted to visit her home. 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. “There’s a couple of centuries going up to help revamp the fort, fix their plumbing, and encourage the taxpayers.” Ruso explained to his best friend and colleague Valens: 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. ![]() This is the second installment of a historical crime fiction series set in the Ancient Roman Empire. ![]()
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