Reading Medicus I’m put in mind of Colin Cotterill's Siri Paiboun series. In both two men more devoted to their jobs than anything else find themselves reluctantly involved in murder investigations. In both we have a comedic more than tragic writing style that still manages to inject notes of seriousness along the way – in Medicus, it’s a reflection on slavery and sex trafficking.

Medicus is not a “heavy” read, however. It’s a very nicely written, moderately complex murder mystery set in the Romano-British town of Deva (modern day Chester) at the beginning of Hadrian’s reign (AD 117). Our put-upon protagonist is Gaius Petreius Ruso, a doctor in the XX Legion, whose marriage has failed (because he was too devoted to his craft and not devoted enough to advancing his career), whose family is drowning in debt and in danger of losing their Gaulish farm, and whose first “mistake” is rescuing a British slave girl from her slimy owner.

The mystery isn’t all that complex or hard to figure out. I enjoyed reading the book because I enjoyed following Ruso as he stumbles along, inadvertently uncovering the clues that lead him to a corrupt and murderous Roman official and the illegal transport of slaves and kidnapped citizens. Our hero is by no means stupid, he’s a rather good doctor, in fact, but he is often blind to his environment, awkward socially and politically inept*. Ruso is a man I can identify with and Downie’s writing is engaging and “user friendly” if you’re looking for a diverting, not-too-serious reading experience.

I’d enjoy seeing PBS or BBC adapt this into a series like n  Brother Cadfaeln; it practically cries out for it.

I’m going to head down to the library this weekend and get some more entries in this series – I’ve been reading too many depressing things lately.

* Downie makes Ruso the “mysterious stranger” who rescued the Emperor Trajan from a collapsing building during an earthquake in Antioch but – much to his wife’s disgust – Ruso never parlays it into anything advantageous.

Thoroughly enjoyable - a bit of history and a bit of mystery. I look forward to reading more Ruth Downie.

The writing was fine, the historical setting interesting, but there wasn't enough mystery in this 'mystery' and I bailed.

This. Yes.
I’m generally a sucker for anything related to ancient Rome, and this series is a treat. It’s slow-moving, but in a leisurely way, almost like playing an RPG: we wander along the streets of small towns and military camps in Roman-occupied Brittania, bumping into all sorts of strange fellows. It’s at time hilarious, at times sweet, sometimes a little suspenseful. I love Ruso’s awkwardness, occasional bouts of typically Roman machismo and his humanity. I know some readers aren’t big fans of Tilla, but I think I see what Ruth Downie is doing with her, and her character makes in fact a lot of sense, even if her decisions may not fit the traditional, modern set of values we rely on to assess characters.

My only qualm would be that Medicus disappoint a little in tension-filled scenes: those can be confuse and lack any urgency (this is very visible at the end of book #1, where you see the plot come together, but there’s no real sense of urgency, even as characters are dying and we’re in the middle of a messy, emotionally intense conclusion.

Note: I tested book #1 on Audible as well. I’m not a fan of the narration, it’s a bit too stilted, and they really should have hired a female voice to dub Tilla and the other women in the book: their lines are a bit cringe-worthy in spite of the narrator’s commendable efforts.

I love period books, and while I thought Medicus was a nice and readable book, it could've been set in any country in any era. I never got the feel that I was reading a book set in ancient Britain. While the character talks a lot about the Celts, they are mostly just boring tribespeople with funny mannerisms.

The hero himself is quite modern. He buys a slave out of sympathy, beggaring himself. He is concerned about the plight of prostitutes. He frets about whether his slave Tilla has someone to talk to about her montly periods and a womanly shoulder to cry on. In short, while I thought he was likeable by modern standards, he didn't feel that authentic.

The mystery itself didn't really enthuse me...The mysterious death of the unidentified woman, was unsuspenseful, because the villain was telegraphed early on. I never really understood why the villain killed the women either. It was very vague.

Part of the interest in historical dramas is reading about the time period and the lives of the people. Although there was a flavor of ancient times, it just felt watered down and a bit modern.

Tīri labs vēsturiskais detektīvs par Romas Impērijas norieta periodu, imperātora Adriana laiks, Britu salas. Interesantāks gan šķita nevis detektīvsižets,bet gan tā laika medicīnas metožu apraksts.

Rounded up from 3.5*. Doesn’t feel much like a true Roman era historical fiction. For a bit in the beginning I thought I was listening to the wrong book, as it felt quite modern. Anyway, liked the story but probably not enough to continue this series.

This was different from the usual crap that I read. The lesson seems to be that if you are a doctor living in the ancient Roman Empire and some hot little slave girl shows up, you should probably keep her. She can make you breakfast and all sorts of neat stuff.

I enjoyed this one.

Didn't hate it, didn't love it. Went in expecting to be immersed in the life and culture of Roman-occupied Britain, and on that it failed to deliver. If you're a fan of historical fiction and are curious about life in an outpost of classical Rome, read "Pompeii" by Robert Harris.

What's a doc to do?

Father has died leaving debts. Brother has a very fertile wife. Stepmother is a bit of a over shopper. The less said about the ex-wife the better. And now, here he is at the end of the world.

Okay, Roman Britian.

But they dress werid.

Oh, and dead girls seem to like him.

Is this the best mystery I've ever read? No. But it's not the worst either. There are some wonderful touches of humor and the world feels real. It's a nice diverting read.

Not sure how I feel about this one, it's the first in a series of eight and is about a Roman doctor serving in the Roman Army stationed in Britain. Ruso is his name and he has an utterly miserable life, newly arrived from a posting in Africa, Britain is a great culture shock, then there's his quarters. He shares with another doctor called Valens who is a right slob (and that's putting it kindly) Ruso has.no money or possessions due to some serious family issues, he actually has to take.out loans and advances in his.pay in order to send money home. His work is his only solace and that can be pretty depressing, medicine in the Roman times was not very advanced and outposts in the edge of the empire were not the best equipped. Then we have Tilla, she is a slave rescued from certain death by Ruso she is a native of the Briggantes tribe and after her home was attacked she was taken prisoner and sold as a slave. When Ruso runs across her she is lying almost dead in the street, Ruso argues with himself not to get involved but ends up buying her and then sneaking her into.one of the hospital beds while he tries to heal her, Tilla and her adapting to Ruso and his home are The best bits of The book for me. The crux of the story is this Ruso is just trying to get through his time in the army as easily as he can but the fates have other ideas. There's a dead girl.found in the river and the body is brought to the hospital.where Ruso examines her, he's only trying to find someway to identify her. Then he hears talk of another girl who disappeared months before. Next thing he's got soldiers coming up to him asking if he's the one investigating the deaths, despite his denials word spreads, some people think he should keep.his nose out of things that don't concern him others that he's trying to cause trouble. Ruso just wants to be left alone to do his job, worry about how.to help.his.impoverished family, and what he's going to do.with a slave.........who everyone wants to help him sell................I said at the beginning I'm not sure about this book, it is well written the story flows well but it is quite depressing and dreary i can't think of one bright spot in the book and some of the reviews described it as humerous, (which was one of its selling points for me) . Amazon were doing one of their deals.so.I got the whole series for a really good price so will read book two before I make a final decision. In summary good story just a bit too despondent.............

Actually 2.5 .

It took me forever to finish it and I wouldn't read the other books in the series even if I was paid to do so!

The plot on the back cover was promising and together the length of the book ( 400 pages ) made one think of a masterfully conceived mystery full of historical details.


___ PLOT ___ (Britannia, the era in which Hadrian had just succeeded Trajan as emperor, the writer does not say it, but we are in 117 AD)
A serial killer is on the loose in Roman-occupied Britain, and Gaius Petreius Ruso is out to catch him... if he isn't killed first.

The Gods are not smiling on army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso in his new posting in Britannia. He has vast debts, long shifts, and an overbearing hospital administrator to deal with . . .

After the news of a woman's body fished from the river and after having saved a slave from the mistreatment of her master, Ruso, the doctor of the XX Legion finds himself, despite himself, wanting to shed light on the events.

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This could have been an enjoyable read of a cozy mystery (or an enjoyable historical fiction to read, if well detailed historically speaking) set among the Roman legionaries in Britain.
Instead it's a cozy mystery (nothing bad, I love them, but at least they're shorter, quicker reads) stretched out with "thin air", no historical details except the name of the emperor at the time and maybe the name of the place (Deva), where the investigation is only a couple of questions up to 75% of the book, where the author inserts any idle talk except to focus on the mystery.

I think : if you don't know how to write a mystery, write something else, if you don't know historical notions and if you don't do some research before writing a historical novel, then write a contemporary one!

I really liked the main character, the Medicus Ruso and his friend/colleague Valens, unfortunately the story is a continuous digression on useless details that serve no purpose in the story; repetitive speeches about our "hero's" past, entire chapters in which the main character repeats the same question and the narrator continues to say that it is not answered; a modern dialogue among Romans that goes beyond the limit of the acceptable, catapulting the reader onto a 1920s cozy mystery book and sometimes on a Victorian movie set, certainly jarring in the Roman Empire era!


---> WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE MAIN CHARACTER :

- Gaius Petreius Ruso : I liked him as a character, because he is not the classic hero of flawless books, he is a good person, full of troubles to solve who would like to live in peace without finding more problems.
The beautiful part of his way of being is that he cannot ignore his conscience, his profession is what it should be even nowadays: a vocation and a mission.
He knows perfectly well that by meddling in other people's business he will find trouble, he doesn't want to do that, but his good heart doesn't allow him to ignore all the bad things around him.
While other negative reviews have described him as boring, I say that he is not at all: it's true, the brilliant way he behaves in society and the always ready joke belong to his nice and handsome colleague Valens, but Ruso, in his way of acting calm, serious and sometimes gruff, he throws his ironic jokes (or thinks them) with great mastery.
This cute character is the only reason I rounded the rating up to 3 stars.


---> WHAT I DIDEN'T LIKE ABOUT WRITING STYLE, DIALOGUES and MYSTERY :

- WRITING STYLE : I usually like descriptions that give an idea of ​​the place, the time in which the story takes place, the type of life the characters lead and their way of being.
I know that this is the first book in a series and I also know that the writer had never been a writer before, but the publisher and other people should have realized that it's like too much of a good thing ( How do they say ? "Less is more" !!! )

Throughout the first half of the book the author continues to repeat about Ruso's debts inherited from his father, every 3 sentences the author inserts Ruso's thoughts on what his hateful ex-wife would have said.
In each small scene, the narrator continually talks about visual details (such as a badly decorated wall, mice in the house, shouting and shouting in the street) which are too many, not relevant to the mystery and lengthen the same scene by pages and pages... they become not only useless but also irritating.
This was the trick I used at school, when the essay I wrote was too short and I didn't know what else to write.
Dear author, have you done the same thing? Disappointing and annoying !


- DIALOGUES : It is clear that a novel set in ancient times, to be read easily by readers, must have a non-archaic writing style and dialogues close to today's way of speaking.
But now I ask : since when did Roman legionaries talk to each other using words like "chaps" and expressions like "Right-oh" (British slang that I only found in modern cozy mysteries set around the 1920s)???

And the following sentence: "Hey, mister! Got a penny, mister?"
... A PENNY ???????????????
Since when did the Romans have pennies in their coins??
I won't add any further comments on the matter, better not.

I accept the modernity of language which makes reading the book lighter and more entertaining for me, but I think that an author must set limits and check whether the type of language is suitable for that era and that people or if it clashes with the whole context, just like a jarring note!

Another thing that seemed out of place to me was the continuous knocking on the door and opening the doorknob, in one scene the slave comes back with her candle in her hand, knocks on the door and stops on the threshold. Well, it looks to me like a scene with a maid in the Victorian era.
The first historical evidence of the use of actual candles dates back to the 8th century ( Wikipedia ) and I have never seen films and TV series set in the first century AD where people walked around with candles in their hands... they are usually seen torches on the walls and people walking around with torches.


- MYSTERY AND INVESTIGATION: Almost non-existent.
We have the first suspicious death at the beginning of the book, but even if Ruso is immediately hesitant about the fact that it is an accident and puts forward the hypothesis that it is murder, in fact he only asks a couple of questions around and the whole story is a continuation of patient visits by Ruso. Except for one, none of these patients are relevant to the mystery, they are just part of Ruso's daily life.
Well it's nice to know the character's daily routine, but here we have his life described minute by minute, day after day, from breakfast, to the nights, from all chats with his friend, to the questions he asks himself on his mind and to a thousand other silly things. ..
A book full of thin air!
Only 70% of the way through the story do we have more questions and only in the last chapters do we see a little movement in the story and then the solution (nothing sensational).

- HISTORICAL DETAILS : Same thing as before, i.e. almost non-existent.
Just a mention of the death of Emperor Trajan and the succession of Hadrian.
There is also mention of the Roman baths (that is, the slaves of a bar/brothel go to the baths, nothing else).

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Maybe the following books in the series are better documented, but I think the writing style remains the same and it's not for me, I absolutely don't feel like going on with the series.
I will try other mysteries with the same setting, but by other authors.
So far, the truly well-documented and compelling historical fictions are those of the Italian writer Valerio Massimo Manfredi.

Thank you for reading my opinion and please forgive my English, it's not my native language, I am from Italy (and I live in a town founded by Romans! :-) )