Years ago I devoured Lindsey Davis's Roman mystery series, then I went through Stephen Saylor's Roman mystery series, then I guess I moved on. But when I stumbled across this first book in a mystery series featuring a Roman Army doctor, I thought it could be fun to revisit ancient times. This one takes place about 200 years after Saylor's series, and about 40 after Davis's -- in AD 117. It opens in Deva (present day Chester, England, about ten miles south of Liverpool), where Gaius Petreius Ruso is starting a new job as doctor to the 10th legion.

A rationalist unskilled at the schmoozing and scheming necessary for social advancement, he is fleeing his failed marriage, and burdened by crushing debts incurred by his dead father. He signed up for this job at the edge of the Empire, and is learning Britannia along with the reader. It doesn't take long for a corpse to wash up and get him unwillingly involved in a murder investigation. His scruples then also push him into buying a local slave woman he doesn't actually need or want.

And so the story unfolds with Ruso in a more or less constant state of exasperation, confusion, and empty pockets. The murder mystery isn't particularly compelling or interesting, but it gets the job done. The pacing isn't the greatest either -- the story doesn't tick along fast enough -- but gets there in the end. All in all it does an adequate job of laying the foundation for the series, with various relationships and characters set up for the next book, but it's not groundbreaking stuff. I'll definitely be reading the next one, and hoping that the stories get a little more interesting over the course of the series.