Bookraft

Here is another example where an audiobook with a stellar performer as reader, really adds value to a book. Medicus is a novel [okay, a mystery novel set in the outskirts of the Roman Empire - i.e. Brittania]. I had come across this book in a antique shop [okay also a used book seller] and had started to read it, got intriqued, but also got pulled away by my companioin on an urgent task [much like the hero of this series, Gaius Petreius Ruso - Medicus/Doctor to the 20th Centurions]. Too may alarm I misplaced the book. I was disappointed because the book had a quirky tone to it and an engrossing proposition - a historically accurate portrayal of the life and times of Roman Britain. But as I told Tanya, for the life of me I could not remember the title.

This past week, I happened to run across Medicus again - but as an audiobook in the Port Hope library. Still I was delighted and cued it up on an auto-trip to a client's site in Southern Ontario. I was hoping that the book in audio-reading would be as good as the one I had misplaced in the antique store. Not to worry - because the story reader, Simon Vance, is a primary reason the book comes off as a potent charmer. Simon has the gift of voices. He can get the low growl of Bassos; the uptight, upright tones of our Medicus, Gaius Ruso; the warbling charms of the ladies at the bar - Daphne, Chloe, and the scheming Marulla; and the cunning banter of Valens and Priscus. In short, Simon gives varied yet natural and believable voices to an already richly described Deva[now Chester], Brittania.

What makes the story even more engrossing is the "modern' tone to it. First, Gaius Ruso is very competent and astute doctor; but less accomplished in the ways of advancement in an Imperial World. Second, he is a critical thinker but also leaves open the belief in gods and ghosts. Third, having just suffered the slings and arrows of a divorce [okay she left him], he is a bit cautious with women - which makes this story by a female writer more interesting as Claudia and her remembered stings are part of the Gaius Ruso parcel.

Gaius, almost by accident, has rescued/bought a young British girl, Tulla, from an abusive slaver and has had to spend the last few weeks in setting her compound fractured arm and then shepherding her long and painful recovery. In the process the good Doctor has to protect Tulla from the dregs to be found in the bar house where he temporarily has her recuperating. Two girls disappear from said bar house and are found gruesomely murdered within a week of each other. And the good Doctor, in the process of protecting his ward, finds himself drawn into the mystery murders .... Not only is the mystery satisfying but also the droll sense of humor of the various characters in and out of the army and in and out of Deva, Brittania. There is a paperback edition but get the audio-book for the story plus a most entertaining reading by Simon Vance.