‘Buried Too Deep’ by Jane Finnis.
Published by Poisoned Pen Press. ISBN:978-1-59058-399

Roman mystery stories are fast becoming as popular as mediaeval crime stories. Lindsay Davies and Steven Saylor set the standard for stories set in Rome, and the excellent Rosemary Rowe has done the same for Roman Britain. Now another writer has joined her. Buried Too Deep is the third in a series of mysteries featuring Aurelia Marcella who keeps a mansio (an inn) on the road between Eboracum (York) and the Oceanus Germanicus (the North Sea) and her twin brother Lucius, an investigator on the staff of the Governor of Britain. They are Romans, originally from Pompeii, who migrated to Britain twenty years ago after the volcanic  eruption of A.D. 79. They, and their half-sister Albia who is married to Candidus, a farmer and also Roman settler, are on good terms with the local British tribe (the Parisii).

Times are not easy in this corner of north-east Britain. The story opens with a wounded man being brought to the mansio; he is one of Lucius’s informers and his wound is from a sword. Gaulish raiders have based themselves near the coast and are waylaying travellers, attacking Roman settlements and even the local tribespeople. Lucius has been sent from Londinium by the Governor with a small contingent to deal with this. He also has news of a previously unknown half-brother who has a story of long-buried treasure. When Lucius hears that a ship with a chest containing valuable Government cargo has been wrecked on the coast he and Aurelia hurry to the coast to get there before the raiders. But when they arrive, the chest contains, not gold intended for the Caledonian tribes north of Hadrian’s Wall, but a severed head. And it is one that Lucius recognises: that of the man claiming to be his and Aurelia’s half-brother. Other deaths follow, which may or not be connected, and it takes all Aurelia’s skill and that of her brother and her lover Quintus to disentangle the complex web of motives and opportunity and discover the truth.

At the end of the book there is a brief historical note about Roman Britain and a list of some of the books used for research. It would have been helpful if a list of all the characters had also been included as Lindsay Davies does. I counted 19 characters in the first 25 pages, mostly with Latin or Latinised British names which readers new to this field may find difficult to keep track of. Overall this is an interesting and well-researched book, in particular the impressive medical techniques of the time.

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Radmila May

Other books by Jane Finnis: Get Out or Die, A Bitter Chill.