Customer Reviews

Medicus: A Novel (Roman Empire)

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Ruth Downie's debut novel about a Roman doctor on the edges of the Empire in Roman Brittania. The book is the first in a promised series. Our doc, Ruso, who's really from Gaul, not Rome, finds life away from the imperial center to be difficult in every regard - bad food, bad clothes, and bad wine - not to mention the weather and the natives. He went to Brittania to get a fresh start after a divorce and the death of his father, but Ruso's halting good intentions keep dragging him into deeper trouble as women from a local bar/brothel keep disappearing - or worse.

The Romans did indeed have a well-developed bureaucracy and they brought it with them, including its myriad regulations and record-keeping. With bureaucracy comes bureaucrats and his problems with his chief administrator are nonstop.

Fresh and wryly funny; Downie wields a lighter touch than Steven Saylor, not as polished, but not as worn either. Highly recommended.

This reviewer, for one, hopes to hear more from Ruth Downie. Her first novel, "Medicus," is a pleasing tale set in Britain during the heyday of Roman occupation.

The plot, itself, is a bit predictable but workmanlike. Character delineation is strong, particularly in the persona of her protagonist, the ever-harried medicus of the XX Legion, Gaius Petreius Ruso. Downie is a perceptive observor (and chronicler) of male perspectives. Her artistry is in conveying through Ruso some male traits and thoughts that are universal and timeless.

Where Downie also shines is in her uncanny ability to evoke the atmosphere of an era and place that we really know relatively little about. She uses the facts that we do know about Britain in the second century to bring us the "feel" of the time and place.

Overall, an elegant and pleasing novel.

This is an absorbing story with a good basis in historical fact. The central mystery -- who is killing native Briton bar girls in a rough garrison town -- is well plotted, and though we suspect the villain early on, the working out of how and why is interesting.

The book's real strength, though, is that the mystery is interwoven with a good deal of information about clothing, food, urban architecture, military organization and the relation between Roman masters and native Britons. Downie is very skilled at describing how the town looked, its dirt and smells, the variety of trades, what people wore and what they ate and drank. She also creates a plausible picture of the relationship between the Romans and their subjects -- what slavery meant to individual Britons and the variety of personal relationships among slaves, free subjects and Romans. If you are at all interested in Roman Britain, this book is an entertaining, easy way to learn more about colonial society.

Like Tilla the slave's cooking, "Medicus" could use some spice. The basic story, involving a Roman army doctor newly assigned in 117 AD to a legion in Deva (Chester), Britain, who unwillingly gets involved in the investigation of the murder of a tavern prostitute, is competent and the protagonist is reasonably likable, but there seems to be an absence of zest to the secondary characters and setting. Comparison with Steven Saylor's "Gordianus the Finder" novels and Lindsey Davis's "Marcus Didius Falco" tales are inevitable. I would characterize "Mediucus" as being less thoughtful and serious than the former and less brash and sassy than the latter. If "Medicus" should prove to be the first volume of a series, I think I would bypass the hardcover editions and wait for the paperbacks, but it is possible that with experience the author may cook up a more satisfying entree next time. "Medicus" is not a bad debut, but neither is it wholly exciting.

Divorced, preoccupied by his dead father's bequest of debt, serious about his medical profession, Gaius Petrius Ruso, an officer in the Roman army, newly posted to the Empire hinterland - Britain - gets off to a rough start in British author Downie's first.

Overworked and squalidly housed, Ruso finds his carefully constructed plans disintegrating under new debts and distractions when he rescues a British slave girl with a broken arm and asks a few too many questions about a dead prostitute.

All Ruso wants to do is pay his father's debt and write a groundbreaking medical guide but events and his kind heart conspire as another prostitute turns up dead and his newly acquired slave girl is more burden than asset.

Ruso does more stumbling than sleuthing as his martinet boss, his vermin infested house, his wily, ambitious roommate, and the strange ways of the barbarian Brits trip him up.

The remote military outpost is a vivid and brutal place and the gulf between conqueror and conquered is full of misunderstanding and bigotry. Downie's writing is witty and humorous and although the story sags a bit in the middle, the mystery solution is satisfying, the unusual setting is rich and detailed, and the hero is engaging.

I'm not crazy about cozies, which this novel is (most of the violence and all the sex take place offstage), but the main character, Gaius Petreius Ruso, is so engaging that I didn't want to stop reading. Ruso inhabits a vividly drawn world where the Roman army coexists uneasily with "conquered" Britons. A doctor at the legion hospital, he becomes an unwilling detective trying to find out more about the mysterious deaths of two bar girls. Along the way, he contends with situations that are very plausible, given the Romans' typical administrative efficiency: an upcoming imperial audit of the hospital's books, the need to get an advance against his pay, a supply room locked by the officious administrator, putting up his slave as collateral for a loan. Ruso maintains a sense of irony through it all, and you feel this man's inherent decency. Downie has done a great job with her first novel. I'm eager to see more from her.

One subject that never fails to get my heart pumping is history. I've discovered an enjoyment for historical fiction as well. Sometimes, the holes in history are filled in fairly well by a writer's imagination. In the 8th grade, I read Johnny Tremaine. As I've grown and studied the period surrounding our American Revolution, I found it to be fairly accurate, but the fictional element added an interesting spice to my understanding of the period.

I found a similar experience with Medicus. One historical period with which I'm particularly fascinated is the Roman Empire. Yet some parts of the history of the empire were recorded better than others. The British Isles were one area for which little written history remains.

I came across Medicus as a Kindle freebie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main character, Gaius Petrius Ruso, is a Roman Army doctor in Britain during the period when Trajan died and Hadrian took over as emperor (approximately 117-118 AD or CE depending on your perspective). The book begins with a girl turning up dead and Ruso is forced to deal with it as the only doctor not sick or away from the hospital. This girl's death leads him unwittingly into buying an injured slave girl and investigating a string of murders of bar prostitutes.

Complicating the plot, Ruso is also juggling the aftermath of his father's death among an over extension of credit. Though Ruso is divorced, his brother maintains the family farm in southern Gaul (France), and his responsibility is to send whatever money he can from his Army salary to support his family and somehow repay his father's massive system of debt. Ruso's solution is his own intricate system of loans that threaten to unravel at any moment, especially when the tyrannical hospital administrator gets involved.

I enjoyed the book and the characters. The narration is predominately told in the third person surrounding Ruso, the main character, although occasionally we're given a glimpse into the mind of Trilla, the slave girl. The switch didn't seem very consistent though.

Other reviewers on Amazon said the other characters were two-dimensional. I didn't think so. Since the story was mostly told from the perspective of the main character, obviously the other characters didn't appear as filled out. At least, it's obvious to me. I'm not a trained book reviewer, but I am a trained reader. I know what I like. I also wonder how "two-dimensional" people in my life would appear if the only way you knew them was through my journal. No, you can't read it.

My biggest complaint about Medicus is I'll have to buy the rest of the series now that I'm invested in the main character. There are at least 3 more books following this one, and none have shown up as Kindle freebies yet. If you love the triumvirate of history, fiction, and the Roman Empire, you should enjoy Medicus.

Picked this up for free on Kindle and didn't expect much but thoroughly enjoyed it and already purchased the next in the series. The tale was mostly believable and moved along at a reasonable pace - perfect for reading on the treadmill at the gym. The characters were developed as much as they needed to be without bogging us down in the details. I expected to dislike the 'modernity' that some reviewers objected to but (to my surprise) enjoyed it. These were people doing what people have always done with the same doubts and fears. Dressing things up in 'ancient' garb wouldn't have made a difference to my enjoyment.

I got this as a freebie on Kindle, stayed up until 2 reading it and then bought the second one the next day. I read it at once. I'm waiting for the others.

Sometimes the voice of an author just really, really works for me and this one is absolutely perfect. The main characters and the interesting world-building kept me fascinated. Of course, maybe if I knew more about the period, I'd be quibbling about details. Or maybe I'd be impressed by the research. (Probably both.)

I think part of the reason I loved them is I'd just read a bunch of Fate of Mankind books with Heroes who rarely screw up -- and these are smaller books, about regular people who blunder occasionally.

The mystery seems secondary to the other reasons why I love the book, but it was pretty good too.

Right. I'll just copy/paste the rest of this from my blog.

"I'm in love. The main character is my favorite kind of guy. He's smart, means well, isn't entirely successful because he is basically a pushover. He has an edge of pompousness and catches it in himself. In other words, he's human.

What more could you want? Ruth Downie creates something Pratchettish in that we get a world that is entirely different but basically the same as ours. Instead of the disk world, this is Roman Britain. The main character is a doctor with the Roman occupiers and he worries about the same sorts of things we do, too much work, too much debt, how to deal with an errant slave (almost the same sorts of things). The secondary characters are fun as well. His roommate, "the good-looking doctor," is a hoot. The sort-of-love interest is the slave, who is mysterious and practical, but not as wonderful as I'd hoped --so far. She's got potential. [now that I've read the second book, she's as real as everyone else. She's great.]

Also there is a murder mystery that the main character is not responsible for solving (as he tells anyone who asks him how the investigation is going). I had sort of guessed at perpetrator, but that's good. Sort of guessing means there are real clues and not the usual false trails. I love the world building and I'm just as glad I don't know doodly about that time/place because I'm sure I'd have had to have those moments of discord that pull you out of the story. Bad enough I notice story structure etc when I just want to read, read, read.

The first book was free (I don't think it is any more.) The second, that I've already bought, is 99 cents. The rest. . . . oh well. It's just money."

This author is obviously a Lindsey Davis wannabee, but she lacks Davis's skill in plotting, and her inimitable sense of humor. It's the story of a Roman medicus, or doctor, stationed in Britannia in the last days of Trajan's rule and the first months of Hadrian's, who investigates the mysterious deaths of two prostitutes while also befriending an injured and mistreated slave girl. From early on, it's clear that the doctor will fall in love with the slave, although there's no sex in the story other than what's implied in the activities of the bar-brothel where Dr. Ruso's slave girl is briefly quartered.

The period detail is quite good and the author's research is unobtrusive, but the story never really gets off the ground. There's very little suspense; the plot tends to meander slowly and somewhat repetitiously, and the author's occasional attempts at Davis-style humor fall flat. If it were not for my interest in things ancient Roman, I probably wouldn't have finished the book.