Enemies of the Empire by Rosemary Rowe

The 7th and second last book on this series that I've been able to get my hands on. That took much less time than expected - this books get finished very fast.

This story takes place in the outskirts of Britannia, where Libertus is accompanying Marcus on a trip. But, when one unfortunate night gets Libertus thrown in jail for suspicion of murder, the resulting investigations uncover not only a dead man walking, but a possible plot of rebellion.

The amount of investigative work in this story is higher than The Ghosts of Glevum, and the amount of action is probably roughly the same. After all the army is involved, even if a century of soldiers is only 80 people. Looks like we're moving towards a happy equilibrium here!

What I liked about this book was that it explored the tensions between the Roman conquerors and the conquered Celts. While Libertus is a Celt, he has a lot of vested interest in making sure that his Patron Marcus survives, and after that long period in captivity, he's pretty much integrated into Roman life. Same for his wife and slave Junio (Junio was even born in slavery, which means he's the most "Roman" of them all). So it was interesting for the book to go to a more rural area and look at the anti-Roman sentiment. I particularly enjoyed all the little pieces of history trivia.

It's a pity that I've run out of books and time to read. I'm hoping that because the later books are published later, I can get my hands on a physical copy. Either that, or it's really really time to get an Amazon gift card because it seems like all the books are on Kindle.

Love love loved this series. It especially picked up in the later half, because it deviated from the pattern of the first few books and got more and more original.