Memento Mori (Ruso Medicus Series) by Ruth Downie

Memento Mori brings us a crime story set in ancient Roman Britain, this time in the spa town of Aquae Sulis, today's Bath, England. The town today boasts many Roman ruins including the mineral baths, and those baths play a central role in this tale. As always, the author looks to history for inspiration, and provides amateur historians lots of information and era flavor to enjoy.

Ruso is the main character of the series set in AD123 (in this book). He's a Roman-Gaul (modern day France) who served as a doctor (medicus) in the Roman army. In the course of the series, Ruso followsd the example of many of his fellow service members, and marries a local woman. Tilla, Ruso's British wife, contrast entertainingly with her husband, with the two forming a cohesive whole that is very appealing.

One thing I've admired about the series is how the life of the Roman soldiers, as seen through Ruso and his comrades, always links the story and characters firmly to modern times. That is true in this book too. Ruso in this book has retired from service and moved in with his wife's relations in Northern England. But being Ruso and Tilla, a crime surfaces very quickly to draw them south to the spa town to help out an old friend. There are several old friends in the book, which will please followers of the series.

Much of the humor in the series comes from the contrast between British and Roman customs and ways of thinking. Sections alternate between the third-person limited point of view of Ruso and Tilla, and a few other characters now and then. Those perspectives ring true, as do the interactions between husband and wife. All the characters feel very human, which has been a strength of the series from the beginning.

I felt that the narrative flows logically and is easy to follow, and it is entertaining all along the way. I tend to get restless reading the middle section of crime and mystery novels, at the point where the author mixes it all up and adds in red herrings and odd strands of side stories, but that didn't happen with this book (nor with the others in the series). I enjoyed it all!

These are all the books in the Ruso Series to date:

1. Medicus (reviewed on this site)
   
2. Terra Incognita
3. Persona Non Grata
4. Caveat Emptor
5. Semper Fidelis
6. Tabula Rasa (reviewed on this site)
7. Vita Brevis (reviewed on this site)
8. Memento Mori (reviewed on this site)

 The Kindle version of the book has this alternate cover.

From the book's description:

The eighth gripping novel in the bestselling Medicus series, in which Ruso and Tilla investigate the death of the wife of Ruso's friend in the sacred hot spring of Aquae Sulis.

A scandal is threatening to engulf the popular spa town of Aquae Sulis (modern-day Bath). The wife of Ruso's best friend, Valens, has been found dead in the sacred hot spring, stabbed through the heart. Fearing the wrath of the goddess and the ruin of the tourist trade, the temple officials are keen to cover up what's happened. But the dead woman's father is demanding justice, and he's accusing Valens of murder.

If Valens turns up to face trial, he will risk execution. If he doesn't, he'll lose his children.

Ruso and Tilla do their best to help but it's difficult to get anyone--even Valens himself--to reveal what really happened. Could Ruso's friend really be guilty as charged?

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

The Throne of Caesar (Gordianus Sub Rosa Series) by Steven Saylor

This is likely the last book in this series of 16 books set in Ancient Rome, spanning the end of the Republic and the beginning of Imperial Rome, featuring the fictitious Gordianus the Finder, a private investigator. Gordianus, as usual, rubs shoulders with the famous and infamous of this era in this book.

Fans will be happy with all the Roman words and concepts that help bring the past to life, as well as the references to previous books and people from the series. Actually, it feels like this one was written with the fans firmly in mind, to give them a satisfactory ending to the series.

The first person account by Gordianus brings the reader quickly up to date with the character and his life, as well as the era of emperor-dictator Julius Caesar. Moving swiftly and smoothly into the story, the author mixes dialogue and description with historical information and cultural color.

There are special asides that appear to be meant for historians or amateur historians, for example, references to things to come in the near and far future for the characters. We see Cicero hoping his treatises will be his path to lasting fame, when students of Latin will know that his entertaining correspondence and precise legal arguments have always been valued more than his dull, over-labored treatises. Marc Antony, his martial wife Fulvia, Cleopatra and various others have events foreshadowed too.

There are also timely meditations on the nature of dictators and their followers. Questions about narcissistic leaders and their authoritarian tendencies arise, as well as what to do when a leader, especially a dictator shows signs of mental illness.

From the beginning of this series, there has been the hint that the main character was an imagined ancestor of a later mysterious one-named real Roman Emperor, Gordianus. This book shows how a family could rise in society to that height, keeping that hint alive. 

This writer has never spared the gory details of Rome's institutionalized sadism of torture, slavery, war-mongering, paternalistic misogyny, etc., and we get plenty of it in this book too. Actually, I'll admit that by the end of this book, I felt ill from the horrid crimes and retributions, and was not glad to have read the book, which is a feeling I've had at the end of several of the previous books in this series. Gordianus's narration is part of the issue, since he is portrayed as quite typical of his era in many of his horrid beliefs and attitudes. This is one for the die-hard fans, however, so don't mind me.

From the book's description:

In The Throne of Caesar, award-winning mystery author Steven Saylor turns to the most famous murder in history: It’s Rome, 44 AD, and the Ides of March are approaching.

Julius Caesar has been appointed dictator for life by the Roman Senate. Having pardoned his remaining enemies and rewarded his friends, Caesar is now preparing to leave Rome with his army to fight the Parthian Empire.

Gordianus the Finder, after decades of investigating crimes and murders involving the powerful, has set aside enough that he’s been raised to the Equestrian rank and has firmly and finally retired. On the morning of March 10th, though, he’s first summoned to meet with Cicero and then with Caesar himself. Both have the same request of Gordianus—keep your ear to the ground, ask around, and find out if there are any conspiracies against Caesar’s life. Caesar, however, has one other important matter to discuss. Gordianus’s adopted son Meto has long been one of Caesar’s closest confidants. To honor Meto, Caesar is going to make his father Gordianus a Senator when he attends the next session on the 15th of March.

With only four days left before he’s made a Senator, Gordianus must dust off his old skills and see what conspiracy against Julius Caesar, if any, he can uncover. Because the Ides of March are approaching...

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

The Price of Freedom by Rosemary Rowe

The Price of Freedom featuring Libertus, a freedman mosaicist, is book 17 in the popular series Libertus Mystery in Roman Britain. The author has done a wonderful job keeping her series fresh and fun, with lots of local color and Roman history for amateur historians, along with red-herrings, a complex mystery, and suspects galore for mystery fans.

Libertus narrates the story in first person, as if it were a chronicle of his adventure written soon after its conclusion. He has a dry wit, and is a personable narrator, a Celtic familyman-business owner who gets roped into problem-solving for his former master. The life of slaves in Roman Britain is portrayed in all its horrible variety, and features especially strongly in this book.

While it is fun to read all the books in the series in order, to visit periodically with “old friends”, the author does well at bringing new readers up to speed with Libertus's life to date, quickly and painlessly. The dialogue heavy style keeps the story active and moving forward quickly. However, the history woven into the tale can slow it down a bit. But those bits are beloved by die-hard fans of fiction set in ancient Rome's empire.

I found it entertaining to travel alongside Libertus through Roman Britain, encountering realistic characters and believable adventures. The author uses the story to point out the parallels between the past and today, since the one constant over time is human nature, in all its violence, fanaticism, patriarchies, and barbarism. Those darker elements have, rightfully, always been a part of Libertus's tales, since the Roman Empire was a very violent, brutal place with lots of institutionalized sadism.

There are many characters in the novel, which usually isn't a problem for me, and is how a novel should be, but for whatever reason this time I had difficulty keeping people clear. The ending was rather quick; I would have like a little for strands of the story tied up with Libertus's hindsight. But I'm not really complaining since this was a very entertaining read! I look forward to spending time with Libertus again in his next book, perhaps with more of his family in that one.

The books in the Libertus Series to date:

1. The Germanicus Mosaic
2. A Pattern of Blood
3. Murder in the Forum
4. The Chariots of Calyx
5. The Legatus Mystery 
6. The Ghosts of Glevum 
7. Enemies of the Empire
8. A Roman Ransom
9. A Coin for the Ferryman
10. Death at Pompeia's Wedding
11. Requiem for a Slave
12. The Vestal Vanishes
13. A Whispering of Spies
14. Dark Omens
15. The Fateful Day (reviewed on this site)
16. The Ides of June (reviewed on this site)
17. The Price of Freedom

From the book's description:

The death of a local tax-collector spells trouble for Libertus in this compelling historical mystery.

Having been inveigled into standing for the local curia, responsible for the submission of all local tax, Libertus discovers that any shortfall must be made good by the councillors themselves. So when news arrives that a tax-collector from a nearby outpost has committed suicide, having gambled everything away, Libertus is despatched to make enquiries, in the hope of recovering at least some of the missing revenue. He has also been asked to attend a wedding, in place of his patron, who is expecting a visit from an Imperial Legate.

But the assignment which should have seen Libertus for once treated as an honoured guest begins to take grisly and unexpected turns. As he pieces together the unlikely truth, Libertus finds himself in mortal danger. Freedom, in all forms, is only relative ? but there is a high price for it, sometimes paid in blood?

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Abruzzo Intrigue (Hardy Durkin Series) by Bluette Matthey

This is one for Italophile fans of the vicarious-vacation sub-genre of mystery books. Readers travel to Italy's central-eastern Abruzzo region and visit many of the top sights along with a hiking tour caught up in the crime capers of various persons in Abruzzo Intrigue.

Hardy Durkin is the fictional hunky tour guide at the center of the book, and the Hardy Durkin Travel Mystery Series.

Books in the Hardy Durkin Travel Mystery Series so far:

1. Corsican Justice
2. Abruzzo Intrigue
3. Black Forest Reckoning
4. Dalmation Traffick
5. Engadine Aetie

Hardy's tours are for:

...folks who didn't mind a healthy trek during the day, but expected good food and their creature comforts at day's end.

Abruzzo Intrigue is for readers who enjoy literate writing, lots of Italian tourist information about the areas the characters are visiting, some digressions from the plot for interesting information, and a variety of characters thrown together in new surroundings.

The assortment of characters with their individual quirks and needs kept me interested in the story more than perhaps even the beautiful descriptions of Abruzzo. Those descriptions are sure to send the reader to the Internet for images of the places described.

I enjoyed the author's mix of 3rd person omniscient writing and 3rd person limited writing. The travel information sometimes slowed the story too much for me to really get into the mystery part of the story, but it will certainly appeal to vicarious-vacation lovers.

There were things I didn't like too, however, like the spoilers in the book's description and Prologue, both of which I'm sorry I read before starting the book. Some of the characters' views were not to my liking either, as was the seeming linking of being overweight with stupidity with one of the characters.

But all in all, Abruzzo Intrigue is quality, old-fashioned, time-honored storytelling. The author winds out various story threads, then weaves them together for the reader into the final tapestry that is the novel. At the end of the book, you'll feel like you've visited Abruzzo right along with the characters!

From the book's description (spoilers!):

Italian Plot Driven by Mystery, Theft, and a Dark Night of the Soul

Abruzzo Intrigue, finds Hardy leading a hiking tour in Italy's high-rural Abruzzo region. Dubbed the 'green heart' of Europe, Abruzzo offers the hikers a heady mix of spectacular scenery, medieval hill towns, spiritual history, and fresh, pure regional gastronomy. Some of the cast of characters are who they seem to be, but most aren't. One member of the group, a grieving widower, plans to steal one of the Vatican's most precious religious relics, The First Eucharist Miracle, from the Church of San Francesco in Lanciano, and embarks on a dangerous odyssey of the soul that ends in redemption. Along the way, Hardy crosses paths with an Interpol agent, elements of the Italian mafia, an assassin and, indirectly, an Albanian drug lord. The book is a collision of values and traditions while hiking through the oft-overlooked beauty of ancient Abruzzo.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.

Return to Umbria (Rick Montoya Italian Mystery) by David P. Wagner

Rick Montoya is back in his fourth Italian Mystery. Half Italian and half pure New Mexican (his American wild west idea of justice at the end of the book could be considered proof of that), Rick makes a living as an interpreter and translator in Italy (if only!), when he's not helping out his friends and relatives who work in law enforcement. His cowboy boots mark him as American even if he speaks Italian like a native.

The series is clearly aimed at armchair travelers, and I enjoyed the virtual visit to beautiful Italy in Return to Umbria. The author includes lots of cultural information and many delicious Italian meals while the protagonist works to solve a mystery or two.

Orvieto and her gorgeous cathedral

I like Rick more in this book than in the previous one I read, mainly because he is less a superman or action hero in this book. He's fallible and not quite the ladies man he appeared to be in the other book. Perhaps as a female reader that is more appealing? I'll leave that up to the men to decide.

There was one part of the book that had me shaking my head: the main premise. The reason Rick is in Orvieto in Umbria seems very implausible to me. His family wants him to convince a male cousin to stop having an affair with a mature married woman.

Really? In Italy?

From my experience in Italy, the male cousin would more likely have been congratulated on his luck at capturing a lucrative bit of tussle between the sheets. It seemed very Breakfast at Tiffany, to be honest, and none of Rick's business. But I suppose for the story's sake there had to be a reason for his leaving Rome and going to beautiful Orvieto.

Book One in the Series

The writing is smooth, generally, but the dialogue feels a bit stilted mainly because the author shows a reluctance to use contractions. Rick's entry into the police case feels natural, however, since he has worked with the policeman in this book in an earlier story, and he works regularly with the police as an interpreter.

There is no explicit sex and no swearing in the book, but there is some violence. Fans of the series should enjoy this one. New readers might want to start with the series at the beginning, but it's not really necessary.

The books in the Rick Montoya Italian Mystery Series:

1. Cold Tuscan Stone
2. Death in the Dolomites
3. Murder Most Unfortunate (reviewed on this site)
4. Return to Umbria

Book Two in the Series

From the book's description (spoilers!):

Orvieto—its very name brings to mind priceless art, colorful ceramics, and straw-colored wine. And the most famous cathedral façade in Italy, a structure of gothic spires, arches, statues, and mosaics. But as Rick Montoya discovers, this jewel of Umbria can have an ugly side as well.

When Rick Montoya moved to his mother’s Italy from his father’s Santa Fe, New Mexico, to work as a freelance translator using his dual heritage, he didn’t expect to be helping the Italian police. His maternal uncle, a high-level commissioner in Rome, however, sees no reason not to use the resources at hand.

Rick’s fourth investigation should not have involved crime. It begins when Rick is asked by his uncle to go to Orvieto to talk some sense into his cousin Fabrizio, whose fling with an older married woman is embarrassing the family. Rick agrees to give it a try, and plans a short but romantic weekend in Orvieto with Betta Innocenti, the woman he met in Bassano. What could go wrong?

Less than a day after their arrival, his language skills draw him into the brutal murder of an American visitor. He finds that he knows the policeman in charge, but Inspector LoGuercio has changed since the time they met in Volterra. The murdered woman had studied art in Italy decades earlier—why has she returned now? And why was she dumped at night on a dusty road?

Through her traveling companions, her devastated daughter and best friend, as well as a growing list of those who knew her from her student days, they realize she had come to Orvieto to face the past. And then a second murder occurs in a public park, with Montoya so close that he wonders if he could have been the intended target. Is all this connected to Fabrizio and his affair, or to the American’s death?

More violence erupts, some of it definitely directed at Rick himself. Strong suspects, tantalizing secrets, concealed motives, and risky behaviors tie to a fascinating landscape and layers of Orvieto’s past.

Book Three in the Series

(reviewed on this site)

Here is a link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website where he blogs and provides information on the locations in the books and their regional dishes.  Visit the Poison Pen Press page for the Rick Montoya series.

Giulia Goes to War (Legacy of Honor Series) by Joan Leotta

Looking for a gift for a hyphenated Italian tween or teen? Or know an adult who enjoys clean historical fiction featuring hyphenated Italians? If yes, then this series of novellas may be for you. The author has four books in her Legacy of Honor Series, each featuring hyphenated Italians serving in a war effort for the United States of America.

Volume One: Giulia Goes to War is about a young first generation Italian-American during World War II. She wants to join in the war effort just like her two brothers who are in the military, and her parents who work on the home front collecting resources for the military equipment factories.

Giulia gets what she wants when she starts work at a plant near home, but then she gets much more than she bargained for with a love interest and an adventure that involves national security.

The love story between two people from very different backgrounds shows up the conservatism of the era (1943+) when like married like, and the twain did not mix. Other social elements of the era come through too, like the sexism, segregation, patriotism, entertainments, communication, and marriage traditions.

The book is rich with historical detail but it never bogs the story down. The author has a clear, clean and polished writing style. Her warmth and understanding of the immigrant experience shines through. She has a clear loves of Italian culture.

This book, and the others in the Legacy of Honor Series, should appeal to tweens, teens and adults who like clean romances set in the past, enlivened by some intrigue and adventure. If you are a hyphenated Italian, you should enjoy these books even more. I think they would make a great gift for young ladies who like to learn more about history through fiction.

Legacy of Honor Series:

• Volume One: Giulia Goes to War
• Volume Two: Letters from Korea
• Volume Three: A Bowl of Rice
• Volume Four: Secrets of the Heart

Volume One: Giulia Goes to War

From the book's description:

Wartime work draws Giulia DeBartolo out of her close Western Pennsylvania family into a world of intrigue, spies and new friends in Wilmington, North Carolina's shipyard building Liberty ships. Giulia soon discovers supporting the war effort can include fun evenings like dancing with young servicemen at the local USO. It is at one of these dances she meets John O'Shea, an unsuitable suitor according to her old-fashioned parents.

As they grapple with the problems of their own budding relationship, John and Giulia encounter a Nazi spy tasked with blowing up part of the Wilmington shipyard. Saving the shipyard from the spy may prove easier than convincing her parents to let her marry John. Giulia must decide what it means to be a good daughter while still following her own heart.

Volume Two: Letters From Korea

From the book's description:

Sal sends Gina (Giulia's sister) newsy letters from Korea and in turn, Gina's talk about Matt's daily flower gifts. Will her ploy make Sal realize he loves her, or backfire on her and discourage him?

The situation becomes more complex when Sal meets a Korean widow with a young child who offers to teach Sal, a pharmacist, the herbal cures of Korea. Of course, Gina is jealous. The relationship between Gina and Sal is about to take a turn for the worse when Sal loses his leg in a bombing attempt to free one of the North Korean prisoners.

At home, Gina finds that someone has made her the scapegoat for stolen files from the Salk polio research project where she works. Fortunately for the two of them, they have a Legacy of Honor in their families they can rely on to help them overcome their difficulties and maybe their own stubbornness about each other as well.

Volume Three: A Bowl of Rice

From the book's description:

Anna Maria O'Shea (Giulia's daughter) became a nurse to continue her family's Legacy of Honor.

In choosing to stick to her commitment to service she looses her long-time college love. The pain of war is stronger than her private heartache.

Is Mark, the handsome physician, the balm her soul needs? Or is it George who will claim heal her wounds with a love that transcends war and the pain she sees all around her?

Volume Four: Secrets of the Heart

From the book's description:

In the middle of the night in January, 1865, two Union soldiers set out on a reconnaissance mission just before the battle of Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Rinaldo DeBartolo wants to finish the mission and to return to Italy and his sweetheart, Emilia. When he and his partner, Walter discover hidden gold, a trail of secrets begins.

That trail winds through the Italian unification, two world wars and a tangle of immigration to reach into Rome Italy in the 1990s at the time of Desert Storm. There the descendants of the American De Bartolo family meet Rinaldo's descendants.

Kathy Ann, the youngest of the clan is working a gap year as a journalist. Her writing endeavors and the family's reunion become complicated by romance, stolen art, and the discovery that not all secrets, even family secrets, are good ones.

Please visit the author's website/blog.

For information on Italians in Pennsylvania. 

This book is available for those who want to know more about Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania (by Stephanie Longo)

From the book's description:

Every Labor Day weekend, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Courthouse Square in Scranton for the largest ethnic festival in northeastern Pennsylvania: La Festa Italiana. The Italians of this region have been proudly celebrating their heritage since their arrival in this country with traditional festivals, including La Corsa dei Ceri in Jessup and Dunmore’s procession in honor of St. Rocco. Using vintage and recent photographs, Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania shows how the Italian immigrants to this area, some of whom arrived with little more than the clothes on their back, became well-respected community leaders. Through hard work and dedication, they have made northeastern Pennsylvania into an area that defines the term “ethnic pride.”

Death of the Duchess by Elizabeth Eyre

This book, the first in a series of six books, is for Italophile fans of historical mysteries, in this case set during the Italian Renaissance in north-central Italy. I loved the intelligent writing that did not talk down to the reader. I found it highly entertaining!

The enigmatic detective at the center of these stories, Sigismondo, is a former soldier-for-hire who now hires himself out to the rich, in the case of this book to the Duke of a Duchy. The authors (two who use the pseudonym of Elizabeth Eyre) have made him as clever as Sherlock, as close to the chest with his deductions as Maigret, as humorous as The Name of the Rose's monk, and as sexy and hunky as a Marvel superhero.

With a wonderful use of varied narrative voice, the reader follows the story while getting a full view of events and people, especially of Sigismondo. There are also treats for the historians among the readers, with descriptions of the Duke's castle, the food of the era, a Renaissance wedding feast, and the varied clothing of era.

The authors do not shy away from the nasty bits either, with the extreme poverty shown too, right next to the over-the-top extreme wealth. Other truths about the era that we get to observe are the lowly status of women and servants with both suffering abuse, family businesses run ruthlessly, and the military dictatorships of Princes or Dukes. The Prince or Duke is the law and order in his territory. Forget democracy and republican values, this is the era of Machiavelli's princes, hopefully benevolent dictators, but usually just dictators.

Sigismondo has his “Watson” in the form of Benno, a deceptively clever servant, a lover of animals more than of people, who can blend into the walls to overhear all sorts of useful gossip that he reports back to Sigismondo. They meet in this first novel of the series, and pick up a mascot in the form of Biondello, a stray dog. Together they tackle the several mysteries that make up this intricately plotted, Machiavellian story.

There are some Britishisms in the text, and lots of dry British humor. Middle-English words are there in abundance to name the articles of daily life of that era, and they may confuse some readers, but they will charm other readers like myself who rejoice in the wide variety of words in English. For example, did you know that the little window or peep-hole set into a door via which you spy on people and things is called a “judas”? Presumably so you can spot the traitor without having to open the whole door and put yourself in danger.

The writing varies from 3rd person objective to limited to omniscient, varying the point-of-view throughout, even to tell us parts of the story from Biondello the dog's perspective! This keeps readers on their toes, and adds much humor and many clues to the subtle storytelling, all there for the perceptive reader to catch. If you need everything spelled out in minute detail, this is not the book for you.

If you are familiar with F. Francis Crawford's historical adventure-romances, especially those set in his adopted Italy, you'll be reminded of them when reading Death of a Duchess. There is the same swashbuckling adventure alongside romance, with political intrigue galore. Unlike Crawford's work, there are sexual references in Death of the Duchess. This is a book for adult readers, and for fans of sophisticated writing.

I found it all very entertaining, and I will be trying to get my hands on the other books in the series. They are all out of print at the moment, so you have to look in libraries or second-hand bookstores, or to on-line dealers who are offering hardback copies for as little as 1 cent + shipping. Hopefully the series will be re-released as e-books soon, as pretty much everything else has been in the past year or so.

The books in the complete series are:

1. Death of the Duchess
2. Curtains for the Cardinal
3. Poison for the Prince
4. Bravo for the Bride
5. Axe for an Abbot
6. Dirge for a Doge

From the book's description:

The first of a new series set in Renaissance Italy features detective Sigismondo who, with the help of the supposed village idiot, must uncover the framing of an innocent man caught in the middle of a family feud.

When a bride disappears and her handmaid is murdered hours before a marriage ceremony that is to heal the rift between the noble houses of de Torre and Bandini, Sigismondo and his sidekick, Benno, spring into action. 

Vita Brevis (Ruso Medicus Roman Crime Series) by Ruth Downie

Ruso, a doctor, and Tilla, a midwife, are the protagonists of this crime series set in Ancient Rome. They are at first glance a mismatched couple, he being a Roman from Gaul (France), she being a Celt from northern Britain, a relatively recent addition to the Roman Empire at the time of the stories. But in this couple's case, appearances are very deceiving. They are perfect together.

Rough-edged military doctor Ruso barely manages to hide his weakness: a deep sense of humanity and justice. In the sadistic world of the Ancient Roman Empire, those are not considered assets. His “foreign” wife values his character and shares his burdens in a way a traditional Roman wife would not. In fact, Ruso once had a very traditional Roman wife but she, fed up with his good nature, sought a divorce. To date, this very entertaining series follows the couple's meeting through to their start of their own family. 

I enjoy the books very much for their quality writing, deep humanity, realistic portrayal of couple and family life, complex protagonists, and the camaraderie of military life portrayed around Ruso. The accurate historical background to the stories is a bonus, since I enjoy historical novels. Being a fan of mystery and crime novels, the central crime plot is entertaining as well. If you have similar interests, you should enjoy the series too. Another aspect I appreciate is that the slavery of Ancient Rome is shown for what it was (and still is): evil.

Vita Brevis, book 7 in the series, begins in the empire's capital city, Rome, in our year counting 123 a.d. under the Emperor Hadrian. Ruso and Tilla are out of their native Gaul and Britain, and out of their depths much of the time when the provincials attempt to set up life in the big city. That adds some fun to this book, seeing the two trying to cope with new challenges. They are not city people, especially not in such a harsh city as Rome at that time, which was probably in many ways comparable to India's Mumbai today.

Crime and Ruso always find each other, and his well-developed conscience makes him feel compelled to get involved. He fights that feeling because the city of Rome is so full of vice that if he tried to fix it all, he would never have a life! But he is ordered by his patron, the man who vouched for him to come to Rome, to investigate more than one death. Doctoring in that era is always part of the story, since Ruso and Tilla are both medical practitioners, and there is plenty of that in Vita Brevis (Brief Life), too, but it never overshadows the story.

Ruso is a fascinating character. He is cursed to be a deeply human and moral man living in a deeply sadistic and amoral society. Tilla's love and presence gives him a reason to carry on. With a child now, the need to make a decent living is a feeling other parents will recognize.

The joy of parenthood pared with the enormous weight of responsibility for another human life, besides the lives of their patients, weighs on both Ruso and Tilla. When they make the decision to purchase slaves to help them cope with their hectic life, it is fascinating to see how they quickly understand that in exchange for the labor, they have taken on responsibility for even more lives, the lives of people who have nothing to live for.

Reading Vita Brevis felt like catching up with old friends. I got to see how they got on in the Empire's capital. I got to see how they dealt with the stresses of new parenthood and trying to set up life in a new place. I got to see if their humanity and decency remained intact in the face of Rome's great evils. I got to step back in time to see the new, despised Christians living side by side with the Empire's respected pagans. I spent several hours being entertained by a quality novel.

The books in the Ruso Medicus Roman Crime Series:

1. Medicus (reviewed on this site)
2. Terra Incognita
3. Persona Non Grata
4. Caveat Emptor
5. Semper Fidelis
6. Tabula Rasa (reviewed on this site)
7. Vita Brevis (reviewed on this site)
8. Memento Mori (reviewed on this site) 

From the book's description:

Ruso and Tilla's excitement at arriving in Rome with their new baby daughter is soon dulled by their discovery that the grand facades of polished marble mask an underworld of corrupt landlords and vermin-infested tenements. There are also far too many doctors--some skilled--but others positively dangerous.

Ruso thinks he has been offered a reputable medical practice only to find that his predecessor Doctor Kleitos has fled, leaving a dead man in a barrel on the doorstep and the warning, “Be careful who you trust.” Distracted by the body and his efforts to help a friend win the hand of a rich young heiress, Ruso makes a grave mistake, causing him to question both his competence and his integrity.

With Ruso's reputation under threat, he and Tilla must protect their small family from Doctor Kleitos's debt collectors and find allies in their new home while they track down the vanished doctor and find out the truth about the heiress's dead father--Ruso's patient--and the unfortunate man in the barrel.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.

The Graveyard of the Hesperides (Flavia Albia Series) by Lindsey Davis

The author of this relatively new series took a chance when she departed from her long-running Falco series in style, target audience and even sub-genre. I was a so-so fan of Falco, and I suppose you could call me a so-so fan of Flavia Albia, too, after reading this entry in the series, but I suspect I'm not the target audience for Flavia's adventures. I'm the right sex but I'm much too old.

The book's alternate and U.K. cover

The Falco series, for those who don't know, is an Ancient Rome Private Investigator series narrated in classic P.I. hard-boiled first-person by butch Falco. It holds great appeal for male and female readers alike. It is fast-paced and sticks to the case like an arrow, with only some humorous and romantic side steps involving Falco's family and love life. 

There is plenty of information provided about life in the Roman Empire, not all of it well-integrated into the stories. Falco writes from his perspective of old age, looking back on his cases and his life.

The Flavia Albia series, of which Graveyard of the Hesperides is book number 4, is written in first-person narrative style from the young woman Flavia's point of view, but it is anything but hard-boiled. It reads as if it were a combination of Flavia's case notes and personal diary written with very little of Falco's hindsight. 

In classic British detective fiction style there is much musing about the case, much theorizing, and lots of side story concerning the main character's inner thoughts and fears. It holds most appeal for female readers, especially those near the same age as Flavia. In fact, all the U.S. versions of the books have a young woman, presumably Flavia, on the cover. 

The historical information is better integrated into the story than in the Falco books, but it might be more than some readers wanted to know.

While the U.K. books with their more adult covers have the subtitle “Falco: The New Generation”, since Falvia Albia is Falco's daughter, I suspect that only a fraction of the loyal readers of the Falco series will find the Flavia Albia series to their liking. It is presumably intended for a new reading public for the author, which as I wrote above is a risky thing for an established author to do. On her website she says the series allowed her to present a:

...caustic Albia giving us her refreshing new perspective on the traditional Roman world from the viewpoint of a woman and an outsider.

What should you know about this book and this series besides the above? Well...

• There is the roman society's greatest evil, slavery.
• The actual crime plot in this book was not new to me. I recognized it the moment the crime unfolded, probably from classic mystery fiction, but that is quite common these days of public domain data dump on the Internet.
• Flavia Albia is a bit of a drag for older readers since she is a perfectly drawn young woman much concerned with her love life, and not really that experienced with life in general despite her rough background.
• Much of the dialog is related to us via Flavia rather than writing it out as dialog.
• There is a clash between the British-isms and the U.S. Spelling and punctuation (in the U.S. Edition only presumably).
• It takes place in the reign of Roman Emperor Domitian, with the inclusion of some other historical figures.
• The Falco clan appear but are not allowed to speak directly, only through Flavia's accounts of events.
• There are animal sacrifices, prostitutes, abortionists and some vulgarities, besides dead bodies of course.
• Flavia is provided with New-Adult-appropriate hunky love interests.

The books in the Flavia Albia Series:

1. The Ides of April
2. Enemies at Home
3. Deadly Election
4. The Grave of the Hesperides
5. The Spook Who Spoke Again (Yes, I agree, that is a very offensive title for the U.S. market, but it is a title the author used in a Falco book for a play Falco wrote that is very similar in plot to Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is staged in this book, written from the perspective of Falco's youngest child.)

From the book's description:

In first century Rome, Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken up her father's former profession as an informer. On a typical day, it's small cases---cheating spouses, employees dipping into the till---but this isn't a typical day. Her beloved, the plebeian Manlius Faustus, has recently moved in and decided that they should get married in a big, showy ceremony as part of beginning a proper domestic life together.

Also, his contracting firm has been renovating a rundown dive bar called The Garden of the Hesperides, only to uncover human remains buried in the backyard. There have been rumors for years that the previous owner of the bar, now deceased, killed a bar maid and these are presumably her remains. In the choice between planning a wedding and looking into a crime from long ago, Albia would much rather investigate a possible murder. Or murders, as more and more remains are uncovered, revealing that something truly horrible has been going on at the Hesperides.

As she gets closer to the truth behind the bodies in the backyard, Albia's investigation has put her in the cross-hairs---which might be the only way she'll get out of the wedding and away from all her relatives who are desperate to 'help.'

Here is a direct link to the book's page at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.

I have a page on this site about the author's Falco series.

Foreign Bodies (Marcus Corvinus Series) by David Wishart

Murder mysteries set in Ancient Rome are a popular sub-genre of historical mysteries. The Marcus Corvinus mystery Foreign Bodies, book 18 in the series, begins right away in classic P.I. style with sometime private detective Corvinus getting a case.

Also in keeping with the P.I. style is the first person narration by Corvinus himself, a hard drinking, often vulgar-tongued layabout who is redeemed mainly by his respectable wife and family name, and his ability to sort out a case by the end of each book.

Corvinus's case comes from none other than the Roman Emperor Claudius, a personal family friend, and it gets the native Roman out of the Empire's capital city. In the province of Gaul's largest city Lugdunum (Lyon, France today), Marcus Carvinus investigates a murder, and learns a lot about life on the edges of the Empire.

I enjoy this series despite the vulgarities, and at times even because of the vulgarities, which can add humor and verisimilitude since the Ancient Romans did speak in rather vulgar terms, as the surviving creative writing shows.

Business, trade at the heart of an empire, life on the fringes, daily life, travel, minorities and new citizens, and the great evil that fueled the empire, slavery, are all in the book to differing degrees. As is Corvinus's wife to a much greater degree than in the previous book, which helps soften the detective's rougher edges.

My favorite part of the book is when the couple board the royal yacht and sail to Marseilles. Accompanying them is a doctor, a perfect specimen of manhood, who attempts to council the shambolic, alcoholic detective to drink less if not at all. Corvinus's reaction is wonderfully entertaining, and understandable in a time when wine was drunk starting at breakfast and then throughout the day.

For newbies to this genre the Roman names may pose a problem but for fans of the series this is a solid entry with much history and Roman culture to entertain, lightened by some humor.

The Marcus Corvinus mysteries set in Ancient Rome:

1. Ovid (reviewed on this site)
2. Germanicus
3. Sejanus
4. The Lydian Baker
5. Old Bones
6. Last Rites
7. White Murder
8. A Vote for Murder
9. Parthian Shot
10. Food for the Fishes
11. In at the Death
12. Illegally Dead
13. Bodies Politic
14. No Cause For Concern
15. Solid Citizens
16. Finished Business (reviewed on this site)
17. Trade Secrets (reviewed on this site)
18. Foreign Bodies (reviewed on this site)

From the book's description:

Ancient Roman sleuth Marcus Corvinus is despatched to Gaul on a personal mission for the emperor.

June, AD 42. The emperor Claudius himself has requested Corvinus’s help in investigating the murder of a Gallic wine merchant, stabbed to death as he was taking an afternoon nap in his summer-house at Lugdunum.

Not especially happy at being despatched to Gaul, and even less enamoured of his enforced travelling companion, the insufferable Domitius Crinas, Corvinus is increasingly frustrated as it becomes clear that the dead man’s extended family and friends are hiding something from him. Unused to strange Gallic customs and facing an uphill struggle getting anyone to talk freely to a Roman, Corvinus is convinced that there’s more to this murder than meets the eye – but, a stranger in a strange land, how is he going to prove it . . .?

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.