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Title details for Caveat Emptor by Ruth Downie - Available

Caveat Emptor

#4.0 in series

by Ruth Downie
Simon Vance
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
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.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Roman Empire

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 31, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781452620879
      • File size: 304399 KB
      • Duration: 10:34:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Author Ruth Downie and narrator Simon Vance have devised the perfect listening escape. Forget about modern life and follow medicus-turned-investigator Ruso to Roman Britain. In Book Four of this captivating series, the Gaul-born Ruso and his Brittania-born wife, Tilla, become embroiled in the death of a local tax collector. When Ruso is asked to help solve the mystery, he and Tilla leave Londinium for northern Verulamium (modern St. Albans), where they encounter a mess of treachery, hints of buried treasure, and the legacy of the warrior queen, Boudica. As always, Vance offers believable characterizations of everyone from bored Roman bureaucrats to native baths-house guards. His smooth delivery of narrative enhances the wealth of historical facts that Downie blends into the satisfyingly complex plot. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 25, 2010
      When tax collector Julius Asper goes missing, physician Gaius Petreius Ruso, who'd rather get medical work, reluctantly investigates in Downie's superb fourth historical set in second-century Roman Britain (after Persona Non Grata). Since Asper's brother and assistant, Julius Bericus, has also disappeared, some suspect the two men have run off with the emperor's tax money, but Ruso considers it more likely that robbers attacked the brothers on the road from the provincial town of Veralamium to Londinium. When the body of a man who fits Asper's description turns up in a Londinium alley, Ruso has a murder case on his hands, and must journey to Veralamium for answers. 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. She also succeeds at leavening the whodunit plot with flashes of humor, many stemming from her hero's British wife, Tilla.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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