The author was uniquely placed to publish this novel in 1998 as seventeen years earlier he had published a partial English translation of the main source: The Chronicle of the ninth-century Byzantine monk Theophanes. He uses his intimate knowledge of the chronicle to recount events from the historical record and to slip in entirely plausible but fictional ones. Along the way, he creates Justinian as a saturnine yet curiously sympathetic character as, minus his nose, he plots his revenge on those who overthrew, mutilated and exiled him.
A Hugo Award-winner offers a fictional account of the violent reign of seventh-century Roman Emperor Justinian II, capturing the drama of his youthful rise to the throne, his expansion of Roman rule, and his eventual overthrow. Reprint.
The Roman Empire in third-century CE had always been a rather mysterious place for me. I knew that there was a crisis as the frontiers gave way and the Emperor Valerian was humiliatingly captured by the Persians but the sources for the period were so vague and fragmentary that it was difficult to find out what happened and when. This novel takes one line from the late and unreliable Historia Augusta that mentions a slave revolt on Sicily in 265. The main character and his son arrive on the island just as the insurgency breaks out and before long are fleeing for their lives towards Syracuse, the only place that offers any hope of safety. The atmosphere of heat and menace pervades the whole book.
In the shadow of Sicily's Mount Etna, a brutal rebellion is about to erupt . . .
The scorching new historical thriller from Sunday Times bestseller and Ancient Rome expert, Harry Sidebottom.
'What Bernard Cornwell is to the Napoleonic Wars, Harry Sidebottom is to Roman legions: unassailable' - THE TIMES ______________________
AD265 - Sicily, Ancient Rome: In the shadow of Mount Etna, slaves are rising up. As the rebel leader declares Sicily the new land of the free, men and women are slaughtered, and cities across the island are sacked and burned.
This is not a book to be read on the beach. Wait for a chilly winter's day and then enter the bleak world of the Soviet Union in the last years of Stalin's dictatorship. A serial killer is on the loose yet no one dares say so. Under Stalin's paternal guidance this is a perfect Socialist utopia where crime does not exist, in contrast to the benighted capitalist countries of the west. To suggest that children are being randomly murdered is tantamount to treason and will bring the secret police straight to your door. But in the end it is a secret policeman who decides, against orders, to pursue the killer.
MOSCOW, 1953. Under Stalin's terrifying regime, families live in fear. When the all-powerful State claims there is no such thing as crime, who dares disagree?
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An ambitious secret police officer, Leo Demidov believes he's helping to build the perfect society. But when he uncovers evidence of a killer at large - a threat the state won't admit exists - Demidov must risk everything, including the lives of those he loves, in order to expose the truth.
Constantinople 1024: few people can remember a time before Basil II. The emperor has ruled for nearly fifty years, has never married, and has no children. He scorns the opulent vestments that go with his rank and delegates his ceremonial duties to his indolent brother. He is more feared than loved and is merciless and vindictive to his enemies. No one dares to challenge his power, for he leads his armies to war in person rather than leaving it to his generals. He has no counsellors, takes no advice, and knows everything that goes on in his empire. That, at least, is what they say in the streets. But this is a world where nothing is ever quite as it seems.
