Lustrum - Softcover

Harris, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099406322 ISBN 13: 9780099406327

Publisher: Arrow, 2015

Synopsis

The stunning new novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of An Officer and a Spy, Pomeii, Imperium and The Ghost.
     Rome, 63 BC . In a city on the brink of acquiring a vast empire, seven men are struggling for power. Cicero is consul, Caesar his ruthless young rival, Pompey the republic's greatest general, Crassus its richest man, Cato a political fanatic, Catilina a psychopath, Clodius an ambitious playboy.
     The stories of these real historical figures - their alliances and betrayals, their cruelties and seductions, their brilliance and their crimes -- are all interleaved to form this epic novel. Its narrator is Tiro, a slave who serves as confidential secretary to the wily, humane, complex Cicero. He knows all his master's secrets -- a dangerous position to be in.
     From the discovery of a child's mutilated body, through judicial execution and a scandalous trial, to the brutal unleashing of the Roman mob, Lustrum is a study in the timeless enticements and horrors of power.

About this title

About the Author:

ROBERT HARRIS is the author of Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, Imperium and The Ghost, all of which were international bestsellers. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. After graduating with a degree in English from Cambridge University, he worked as a reporter for the BBC 's Panorama and Newsnightprogrammes, before becoming political editor of the Observer and subsequently a columnist on the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph. He is married to Gill Hornby and they live with their four children in a village near Hungerford.

Review:

"Harris is the master. With Lustrum, [he] has surpassed himself. It is one of the most exciting thrillers I have ever read" -- Peter Jones * Evening Standard * "Harris communicates such a strong sense of Imperial Rome - the book is awesomely well-informed about the minutiae of everyday life" * Guardian * "Thoroughly engaging ... The allure of power and the perils that attend it have seldom been so brilliantly anatomised in a thriller" * Sunday Times * "Harris never makes his comparisons between Rome and modern Britain explicit, but they are certainly there. And that's the principal charm of his ancient thrillers - their up-to-dateness" * Sunday Telegraph * "Magnificent ... Better than Robert Graves's Claudius novels" -- Allan Massie * Standpoint *

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0099406322
• ISBN 13: 9780099406327
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 452