The Gates of Hell: A Mystery of Alexander the Great - Hardcover

Doherty, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786711574 ISBN 13: 9780786711574

Publisher: Basic Books, 2003

Synopsis

Spurred by dreams of conquest but dogged by treachery, the volatile young Alexander has set his ambitious eyes on the prize city of Halicarnassus in this new novel by Paul Doherty—a writer who offers what Publishers Weekly calls "a rare example of historical fiction that isn't overloaded with history and doesn't give suspense short shrift." It is 334 B.C. Exultant with victory, Alexander is marching south to Halicarnassus, a city of treasures and an ancestry that links the bold but superstitious conqueror to his assassinated father's past. Outside the city, at the farmstead where Alexander's court and commanders set up camp, a series of gruesome murders draws the great warrior's trusted friend, the physician Telamon, into a search for Persian spies operating inside the Macedonian ranks and reaping a bloody harvest through intrigue, terror, and sabotage. And on the other side of the famous Triple Gate in the city's fortified walls, three formidable enemies—the Lion Darius's commander-in-chief Memnon of Rhodes, the Persian satrap Orontobates, and the Greek renegade Ephialtes—lay the trap they have cunningly devised to make this battle Alexander's hellish last.

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Reviews

In 334 B.C., Alexander the Great's march toward world conquest halts before the formidable battlements of Halicarnassus in the third installment of British author Doherty's riveting historical series featuring the sleuthing of Telamon the physician. Scholars race to decipher the enigmatic Pythian Manuscript, which holds the secrets of a fatal weakness in the city's defenses, as well as the location of a fabulous treasure, while spies haunt the Macedonians' camp and counter-spies lurk within the walled fortress. The body of the scribe Pamenes is found on the pavement below his locked room, the so-called ghost-chamber (whose floorboards creak like a ship's rigging when walked upon), and Telamon must decide if his death is accident or murder. Soon other more obvious murders occur, including another body found strangled in the ghost-chamber (even the mysterious death of the villa's cat!). Amid the battles and siege of the city, crucifixion of captured spies and dispatching of soldiers whose wounds cannot be cured, the physician keeps to his investigations. "I cannot explain the deaths of thousands. I can only concentrate on the task in hand. It keeps me sane." Telamon, who wasn't quite a dominant element in the previous novels (The House of Death and The Godless Man), comes to full literary life in these pages, as the prolific Doherty moves masterfully from a terrifically atmospheric prologue through the fiery fall of Halicarnassus. As usual with this assured writer, the solution to the crimes is extremely satisfying.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Doherty, noted master of the medieval mystery, reaches further back in time to continue his intriguing series of novels revolving around the military exploits of Alexander the Great and the behind-the-scenes adventures of Telamon, his boyhood friend and personal physician. When Alexander's determination to invade and conquer Halicarnassus, a city inextricably linked to his infamous father, is threatened by an unsettling series of murders within his own inner circle, Telamon must use his considerable powers of detection in order to uncover a treasonous plot linked to the legendary Pythian manuscript. The manuscript, a cipher purported to reveal both the hidden stronghold secreting a great treasure and a strategically crucial weakness within the fortified walls of the city, holds the ultimate key to the treachery plaguing the Macedonian ranks. Another intelligent whodunit steeped in both suspense and martial history. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786711574
• ISBN 13: 9780786711574
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288