The Legatus Mystery

I like Rosemary Rowe so if you enjoy mysteries in the Roman world you will like this one. Not a flashy detective like Falco but a good solid detective. Set in a later period of the empire and also in Britain not Rome. The Author does a good job bringing Roman Britain too life.

Ms. Rowe does it again with her historical period mystery set in Roman Britain. Ms. Rowe writes less in the action genre of mysteries, but in the intellectual genre, where as Poirot puts it, you have to use your little grey cells. The former slave, and Celt, Libertus, has to do this. He makes his errors and takes his knocks for them, he deals with Roman attitudes towards social ranking and sexual ranking, and finds his way through the blocks put in his way. If you like historically accurate period writing, Ms. Rowe does it well. To me, it detracts if something is out of character and out of period, but I am a history buff and perhaps notice it more. But Ms. Rowe stays firmly on track, both in clever plotting and historical accuracy.

Rosemary Rowe is the pseudonym of Rosemary Aitken, a highly qualified academic, who has written more than half a dozen bestselling textbooks on English Language and communication. She has written fiction for many years under her married name. The murdered body of a visiting ambassador from Rome brings preparations for the Emperor's birthday to an abrupt halt and yet again Libertus is called in to help in the investigations. The case becomes even more mysterious when the body disappears and then unearthly wails and mysterious bloodstains start to appear from nowhere. The townspeople, already riddled with their own superstitions are gripped with terror and Libertus finds himself in extreme danger when he becomes the target of an angry mob, accusing him of angering the gods and demanding his death in an attempt to appease them. Nothing is as it appears and Libertus begins to uncover more unsettling events and yet more deaths before the truth can finally be revealed.