Exciting new adventures of Flavius Ferox and the first volume of a new trilogy. He is in charge of a frontier fort near the Danube and will become involved in defending it in Trajan's second Dacian War with his small force against Dacians [in modern Romania, more or less]. It strained my credulity how the author shoehorned in Sulpicia Lepidina [of birthday letter fame in the Vindolanda tablets] from the first trilogy. The other carry-overs I had no problem with. The future emperor Hadrian is legate of the I Minervina, and he meets inspecting various detachments of his legion, one of which is at Ferox's fort. He is presented as manipulative, ruthless, as well as cunning and bad-tempered, which the author informs us in his Notes, was his personality. We know him from his interest in architecture and engineering, and of course Hadrian's Wall and as one of the "good" emperors.
A nice touch was telling the story, not only from the Roman side, but also from the Dacian side, through the actions of one of its warriors, Brasus. The novel started slowly and built up to the threefold assault on the fort and Ferox's final meeting with Hadrian, who has his own ideas about events. ( )