Guilt-ridden over his failure to save the governor's son and worried about Gwyna's increasing withdrawal, Arcturus takes Gwyna for what is meant to be a relaxing holiday in Aquae Sulis (Bath) only to find on their arrival a dead body defiling the sacred spring.

Better than the first in the series because the author isn't saying 'look at me mixing subgenres' but just getting on with telling a very intriguing story. ( )

I felt this to be too derivative--for "Roman noir"; David Wishart with his Marcus Corvinus series has a touch of humor and lacks the profanity in this one and is on the whole better. Ruth Downie's doctor, Ruso, has Arcturus beat by a mile.

In Aquae Sulis [today's Bath, England] bodies pile up and it is reported the nearby lead mine is haunted. Arcturus, doctor to Governor Agricola sets out to solve the murders beginning with that of Bibrax, a curse-writer, whose curses have the notoriety of coming true. Also he unravels the secret of the mine. Many folks in the town were involved in one way or another, but there was a "kingpin." The writing was pedestrian, and the solution too complicated. I didn't warm to any of the characters. I'd advising skipping this series and read the other two I mentioned in my first paragraph. ( )

The second in Stanley’s Roman noir series finds Arcturus in Aquae Sulis (modern Bath, England). Arcturus, physician to the governor and crime solver, knows his wife, Gwyna, is suffering, but not exactly sure why. Ardur, as Gwyna calls him, makes a trip from Londinium to the baths and the temple of the goddess Sulis—a.k.a. Minerva—for her sake.
When a body is encountered at the baths, Philo, an unmarried, local doctor who is attracted to Gwyna, asks Arcturus to help determine the cause of death. The dead man, whom no one seems to know much about, was Bibax, a local curse maker. There seem to be a lot of these curse makers, whom the citizens pay to inscribe curses on thin sheets of tin that get dropped into the water. People also drop expensive jewelry into the spring, seeking the goddess' favor. A disproportionate number of Bibax's curses have resulted in convenient deaths.
Ardur has two problems: Gwyna's depression—is it partly his fault? And what is responsible for the atmosphere of fear and rot at Aquae Sulis? When he and his wife become targets, the urgency is ratcheted up. A possibly corrupt governing body, the managers and drain cleaners of the baths, that doctor that Ardur dislikes so much, a lazy but ambitious lawyer of the upper class, plus a necromancer all fall under suspicion, until some of them turn up murdered. As this quote states: "Wherever you turned in Aquae Sulis, whatever mean, crooked street you walked down, you always came back to the temple."
If you liked the award-winning first of this series, “Nox Dorrnienda”, you'll love this one.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of “A Patchwork of Stories” for Suspense Magazine ( )