Robert Harris is the author of fourteen bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy -
Imperium,
Lustrum and
Dictator - Fatherland,
Enigma,
Archangel,
Pompeii,
The Ghost,
The Fear Index,
An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction,
Conclave,
Munich,
The Second Sleep and
V2. His work has been translated into forty languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.
When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history.
The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium - supreme power in the state.
This is the starting-point of Robert Harris's most accomplished novel to date. Compellingly written in Tiro's voice, it takes us inside the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, to describe how one man - clever, compassionate, devious, vulnerable - fought to reach the top.
Harris's best so far, rapid and compelling in narrative, copious in detail, thoroughly researched but also, which is more important, thoroughly imagined... IrresistibleIn Harris's hands, the great game becomes a beautiful oneGenres ancient and modern have rarely been so skilfully synthesised... Gripping and accomplishedA joy to read in every way, and as a mirror to the politics of our present age has no equalHarris deploys the devices of the thriller writer to trace the perils and triumphs of Cicero's ascent ... A finely accomplished recreation of the power struggles of more than two millenniums ago
