Ruso and the Demented Doctor

In the bookshop

R.S.Downie won the Fay Weldon section of BBC 3’s End of Story competition; and she was also runner-up in the Mail on Sunday’s ‘Start a Novel’ competition. She has written two novels. She is married with two sons and lives in Buckinghamshire.

Ruso and the Demented Doctor is the second in the Medicus series by R S Downie. The books are set in Roman-occupied Britain, in the north near Hadrian's Wall, in the time before Hadrian’s Wall was built.

Gaius Petreius Ruso is a doctor with the legions, who volunteered for service on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, in remote Britain, in order to escape his unhappy marriage. In this new novel he has been temporarily posted in Coria in the north and Tilla, his housekeeper and mistress, has followed him there.

Strange things are taking place in Coria while it is preparing itself for the Governor’s visit. A stag man wearing antlers frightens people on the roads. A man has been brutally killed and decapitated and the former doctor has gone mad. Instead of treating patients at the infirmary, Ruso is landed with a tricky investigation and the fact that they are now in Tilla’s native lands complicates matters further. She runs away in order to find out about her murdered family and finds some relatives that she has a bone to pick with. She also finds an old lover and spends the night with him. Ruso is jealous, although he does not quite want to realize, let alone admit it.

Tilla’s character is expanded considerably in this novel and we do not get to know until the final pages whether she will go back south with Ruso or stay with the members of her family.

The murder mystery is complicated and also darker than the previous one, as well as more tantalising. The deranged doctor has made a confession but Ruso smells a rat and persists in investigating it further. The loyalties of many are put to the test and the tension between the Romans and the local population does not make Ruso’s work any easier. More bloodshed is on the cards.

Ruso and the Demented Doctor is a nice and entertaining story but sometimes it is hard to know who is who. I can blame myself for not being an attentive reader, but I would also like to put some of the blame on the author for not introducing her characters in such a way that they will be easy to remember. However, Ruso and Tilla are memorable and likeable enough to be remembered.

Read more:http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/interviews2006/r_downie/r_downie.html

Review by Sanne