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Caveat Emptor: A Novel of the Roman Empire

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Caveat Emptor: A Novel of the Roman Empire

By: Ruth Downie
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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About this listen

Ruso and Tilla, now newlyweds, have moved back to Britannia, where Ruso's old friend and colleague Valens has promised to help him find work. But it isn't the kind of work he'd had in mind - Ruso is tasked with hunting down a missing tax man named Julius Asper. Of course, there's also something else missing: money. And the council of the town of Verulamium is bickering over what's become of it. Compelled to delve deeper by a threat from his old sparring partner, Metellus, Ruso discovers that the good townsfolk may not be as loyal to Rome as they like to appear.

While Tilla tries to comfort Asper's wife, an anonymous well-wisher is busy warning the couple to get away from the case before they get hurt. Despite our hero's best efforts to get himself fired as investigator, he and his bride find themselves trapped at the heart of an increasingly treacherous conspiracy involving theft, forgery, buried treasure, and the legacy of Boudica, the Rebel Queen.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend us your ears: listen to another Novel of the Roman Empire.©2010 Ruth Downie (P)2011 Tantor Genre Fiction Historical Literary Fiction Mystery Fiction

Critic Reviews

"Downie excels in bringing the ancient world to life as well as making the attitudes and customs of its inhabitants accessible to a modern audience." ( Publishers Weekly)
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I’m enjoying this series so much, even more than I anticipated. Loving ancient histories of all sorts and also crime fiction well written, I have enjoyed many historical novels. This terrific series does not disappoint. It is well written with a delightful wit and critical eye for detail described neatly. The storylines and plots are refreshing and very twisty, and there is excellent timing from chapter to chapter. The characters have depth and complexity that makes them very credible and relatable. Their various daily lives are meticulously detailed, their personalities, their relationships and interactions, and their problems and solutions are vividly drawn and so like our own today. The past is excellently drawn from fact and then richly imagined with real and imagined people, their lives and the events of their time.

Delightfully twisty tale with believable characters tackling relatable problems in ancient times

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Enough detail to paint a picture without getting boring or interrupting the story.
A good balance.
Beautifully voice and consistent performance.

Still holding true to the concept.

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Refreshingly different, entertaining and different! It's a tale of Rome, it has forts, centurions an emporer and all you expect but it's about a medic from Gaul and a local trial woman ...and a strange dependence between them. This is a must read series with tons to offer. I hope all get as much our of it as I do. Great work Ruth.

A roman tale with a difference

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Boring, tedious, depressing and without action. It would should be relegated to the the garbage tip

Extremely boring and tedious.

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I was disappointed with the book before this one but gave the series one more chance because the first two were quite good.

Ruth Downie again squanders the previous quirkiness of the characters and their relationships; Ruso, Tilla and Valens.

Although there is less of the endless introspection... going through the multitude of "What If ... or IF ... or IF ..." For a man who so thoroughly explores the possible ramifications of his actions, or those of others, this Ruso gets taken for an idiot many times.

Sadly Tilla has much the same interpretation now. The interaction between Ruso and Tilla, which seemed to have been about two very different cultures sorting themselves out, has been entrenched as something far more prosaic.

The first two books I have of Ruso were narrated by Peter Kenny and Sean Barrett. I see the versions currently available are by Simon Vance.

I don't think Vance's style suites the narrative. He seems stuck in a soft drawl with an end of sentence upswing that makes all the sentences come out about the same. He is quite good with character, but Ruso's endless internal dialogue needs more nuance; as Kenny and Barrett gave him. Kenny's and Barrett's Valens is a much more distinct character, less stereotypical.

Vances' sentences as narrator almost always end with the final vowel being drawn out; not "bed", but "be...d" (poorly illustrated here) in a very quiet, flat way. I get that it is a reading, but still ...

I accidentally missed out an hour of the book about half way through. I found I got the gist quickly, so didn't bother going back; sadly. As with the last volume, I might just skip ahead to the final hour.

I'll keep an eye on the series in the hope that it returns to something more like the first two books; and return any (all) that disappoint.

My last attempt at the series

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