Book Review: Medicus by Ruth Downie

     This book had been recommended to me multiple times by different people, so I was exited to finally sit down and read it. It did not disappoint.

     To summarize briefly, the main character is a Roman military doctor (thus "Medicus" is his job title as well as the title of the book) recently stationed in Britain, who discovers that a few recent deaths were not accidental and is pulled into solving the mystery.

    The strength of the novel is in its slow characterization. Most of the characters start out fairly opaque, and often somewhat unsympathetic, but gradually we learn more of their motives and histories, which explains their behavior.

    There is definitely historical flavour to the setting and characters, with no obvious anachronisms, but there were a few occasions, when I found myself wondering things like, "Did the Romans really have Civilian Liaison Officers?" Thoughtfully, the authoress disentangles known fact from supposition in an afterword, admitting to having filled in a few blanks about the Roman military based on what seemed plausible to her. While it's hard to imagine she got every detail correct when making these few leaps into speculation, the details which have been added in this way have clearly been chosen to add to the story and for the most part don't break immersion.

    Since it is a mystery, it would be unfair to give too many details about the way the plot unfolds. However, the denouement does feel believable, given what was learned previously about the characters and events which had taken place. It also felt like a satisfying conclusion. While I later confirmed that this book was the start of a series, as I had originally thought, it stands well enough on its own not to need a sequel if Ruth Downie had decided not to write one.

   I look forward to reading further books in the series, and perhaps eventually re-reading this one. You may want to check it out as well, if historical mysteries are something you like.