Review: MEDICUS, Ruth Downie

• 
  this edition from Amazon on Kindle
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07B659FYD
  
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 1, 2018
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 418 pages 
• #1 in the Medicus series
• Formerly published as RUSO AND THE DISAPPEARING DANCING GIRLS 

Synopsis (Kindle)

Welcome to the most remote part of the Roman Empire. Britannia, AD117 – primitive, cold, damp and very muddy.

The Gods are not smiling on army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso in his new posting in Britannia. He has vast debts, a slave girl who is much more trouble than she is worth and an overbearing hospital administrator to deal with . . . not to mention a serial killer stalking the local streets.

Barmaids’ bodies are being washed up with the tide and no one else seems to care. It’s up to Ruso to summon all his skills to investigate, even though the breakthroughs in forensic science lie centuries in the future, and the murderer may be hunting him down too.

If only the locals would just stop killing each other and If only it were possible to find a decent glass of wine, and a slave who can cook, Ruso’s prospects would be a whole lot sunnier . . .

The first novel in the New York Times bestselling Gaius Petreius Ruso series. With a gift for comic timing and historic detail, Ruth Downie has conjured an ancient world as raucous and real as our own. Perfect for fans of Lindsey Davis and Steven Saylor. 

My Take

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.

My rating: 4.4

There are 8 titles in the series
MEDICUS (the first story, AKA 'Medicus/Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls')
TERRA INCOGNITA ('Ruso and the Demented Doctor')
PERSONA NON GRATA ('Ruso and the Root of All Evils')
CAVEAT EMPTOR ('Ruso and the River of Darkness')
SEMPER FIDELIS
TABULA RASA
VITA BREVIS
MEMENTO MORI

About the author
Ruth (RS) Downie left university with an English degree and a plan to get married and live happily ever after. She is still working on it.
Ruth lives in North Devon with a husband, a fine view and too many cats. She is not the same person as the RS Downie who writes real medical textbooks. Absolutely none of the medical advice in the Ruso books should be followed. Roman and Greek doctors were very wise about many things but they were also known to prescribe donkey dung and boiled cockroaches.

Find out more at www.ruthdownie.com