Memento Mori cover art

Memento Mori

Roman Empire Series, Book 8

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Memento Mori

By: Ruth Downie
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

A scandal is threatening to engulf the popular spa town of Aquae Sulis (modern-day Bath). The wife of Ruso's best friend, Valens, has been found dead in the sacred hot spring, stabbed through the heart. Fearing the wrath of the goddess and the ruin of the tourist trade, the temple officials are keen to cover up what's happened. But the dead woman's father is demanding justice, and he's accusing Valens of murder.

If Valens turns up to face trial, he will risk execution. If he doesn't, he'll lose his children.

Ruso and Tilla do their best to help, but it's difficult to get anyone - even Valens himself - to reveal what really happened. Could Ruso's friend really be guilty as charged?

©2018 Ruth Downie (P)2018 Tantor Crime Fiction Historical Mystery Fiction Crime Heartfelt

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Medicus cover art
Cathedral of Bones cover art
The Seeker cover art
A Conspiracy of Violence cover art
The Unquiet Bones cover art
The Course of Honour cover art
The Capsarius cover art
A Plague on Both Your Houses cover art
Past Imperative cover art
Dragonfly cover art
The Ionia Sanction cover art
The Wolves of Savernake cover art
Nox Dormienda (A Long Night for Sleeping) cover art
Voices of Rome cover art
Marius' Mules I: The Invasion of Gaul cover art
Savannah Blues cover art
All stars
Most relevant
I enjoy the Medicus series more with each new entry. I thought it was a good mystery but as I've said in earlier reviews what I enjoy most is the way Downie handles the relationships among her characters. In this book the relationship between Russo and his friend and fellow medicus, Valens, is as important as his relationship with his wife,Tilla. Also I like the way Tilla talks to Valens' deceased wife:

"She paused, wondering if the dead needed time to think about what they heard or whether you could just rattle on. It must be very annoying to be told lots of things all at once and have no chance to reply."

All the relationships rang true for me and Downie also does an excellent job recreating Roman Britain during the reign of Hadrian.

Remember that you must die

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As usual a really great listen and I am looking forward to the next....
hope it won't be too long on coming....

Very very good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The Ruso books by Ruth Downie are always great to listen to, stories are well written and expertly narrated. I always look forward to the next in the series.

Ripping Yarn with Romans And Britons

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well narrated by Simon Vance. Mystery sustained throughout. The setting in Aquae Sulis takes note of recent archeological finds and scholarship but provides clarification in a postscript between imagination and history (which evolves over centuries, anyway). I know Bath quite well (my daughter was at uni there) and although the remaining Roman structures, including the baths, are substantial, they are generally overlaid by Georgian and Victorian developments, obscuring our view of this Romano-British tourist resort, long before the arrival of the various Germanic tribes who became the English.
I think Simon Vance made good decisions about accents - the upper class Roman citizens, second or third generation from long pacified provinces (like southern Gaul) probably did speak Latin approximately similar to the ruling class of Rome, but evidence even from Bath itself (those wonderful curses) indicates a British Vulgar Latin; vulgar in this sense is no insult, it’s the spoken language, which evolved into French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian etc. Be grateful agreeing pluperfect subjunctives has gone out of fashion. It seems reasonable to me to differentiate native Britons using accents of their descendants and/or tribal homelands. The Vindolanda tablets and other discoveries of my lifetime tell just how multi-ethnic was the Roman province of Britannia, as was the Roman Empire throughout- Koiné Greek was still important, and Greek the language of civil servants in Rome, and scholarship (Ruso and Valens use it, as doctors, to communicate without being understood, and Ruso’s medical texts are in Greek - of course - so Tilla, now literate in Latin, cannot consult them in his absence.
Technical aspects apart, I like this odd couple, who come from different worlds, from different “wisdoms”, one “rational” and practical, the other “intuitive” and eclectically spiritual, but who have learned each other’s language. Not too bad for the occupying colonist from a colony, in the less than prestigious profession of doctor, and the aristocratic ex-slave from a small, but utterly bloody-minded clan of a big tribe.

The odd couple in Bath

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Ruth Downie once again has produced a highly entertaining whodunnit set within the beautifully recreated world of Roman Britain. Twisting plots and light, dry humour go to make a fun novel. All set against the interplay of Russo and Tillas’ less than conventional marriage. Simon Vance reads brilliantly.

Keeps you guessing right to the very end.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews