A terrific opening to an ancient mystery series. Ruso is a Roman, a rather put-upon army doctor in an out of the way locale called Britain, right at the start of the reign of Hadrian. Ruso's divorced, he has financial problems, and he has a surplus of dead dancing girls arriving at the army base where he serves. How he deals with all his problems, and with his difficult slave Tilla, keeps the book ticking along beautifully, with dry humour, eccentric characters, and enough twists to keep a mystery fan happy.If you read this one, you'll want to read the whole series.___(I should mention that Ruth Downie is an over-the-net acquaintance of mine, that we both write historical mysteries set in the ancient world (mine are Greek, not Roman), and we are both published by Penguin. Other than that, I am entirely objective in my review...really truly.)
 - Ruth Downie)