"By all rights, Aquae Sulis should be a lovely place. Maybe one day it would be," is the damning diagnosis made by physician Arcturus during his visit to Bath, in the days when Rome ruled Britannia along with the rest of its empire. Arcturus and his wife, Gwyna, came to Bath for the same reasons others did then: to rest, bathe in the allegedly curative springs (said to be overseen by the goddess Sulis) and restore balance to their marriage. In Kelli Stanley's Roman noir, Aquae Sulis is far cry from the genteel spa that it will become in the days when Jane Austen and Henry Fielding set novels there. Besides those seeking better health, Roman Aquae Sulis draws all manner of hustlers, necromancers, curse-writers, blackmailers and--murderers.
The town, with its hordes of visitors and hangers-on, provides an ideal setting for intrigue and violence; Arcturus, analytical and sardonic, is the perfect detective to investigate the murder of the scribe Rufus Bibax, whose corpse was found in the springs with a lead curse-tablet rammed down his throat. As Arcturus, searching for clues, plumbs the depths of corruption in the town, he passes judgment on the low-lifes around him with tart summaries like, "He only wanted money, which made him one of the cleaner people in Aquae Sulis."
Stanley has populated Roman-occupied Bath with a colorful assortment of wily politicians, decadent sensualists, fraudulent fortune tellers and predatory entrepreneurs, among them the hater Materna (Stanley cunningly uses the Latin term animus maledictus to describe her passionate devotion to making trouble for everyone); her schemes and machinations are the stuff of delicious high drama.
Since it would be all too easy to spoil the fun of discovery for future readers of this delightful procedural (the second in Stanley's Roman noir series after Nox Dormienda), I will give no more away about the satisfyingly intricate plot. Arcturus, looking at the host of nasty connivers in his Bath circle, declares, "Trust wasn't in my upbringing. I didn't watch comedies, and I didn't believe in happy endings." He's seen all the dead bodies, but did he miss signs of the goddess at work around the springs that she was said to protect?--John McFarland
Shelf Talker: A delightful and satisfying complex murder mystery set in Roman-occupied Bath long before it cleaned up itself up enough to suit the likes of Jane Austen and Henry Fielding.