Lustrum
Robert Harris
***OUT NOW, PRECIPICE, THE THRILLING NEW NOVEL FROM ROBERT HARRIS***
'A pure thriller . . . wry, clever, thoughtful, with a terrific sense of timing and eye for character' Observer
'No one delivers thrilling yet timeless games of power, sex, fame and Rome like Robert Harris' Sunday Telegraph
Rome, 63 BC. Seven men are struggling for power: Cicero the consul, Caesar his ruthless rival, Pompey the republic's greatest general, Crassus its richest man, Cato a political fanatic, Catilina a psychopath and Clodius an ambitious playboy.
These real historical figures - their alliances and betrayals, their cruelties and seductions - are all interleaved in Lustrum, through its narrator Tiro, a confidential secretary to Cicero. He knows all his master's secrets - a dangerous position to be in.
'Thoroughly engaging . . . The allure of power and the perils that attend it have seldom been so brilliantly anatomised in a thriller' Sunday Times
Product Details
About Robert Harris
Reviews for Lustrum
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
Standpoint
A read to be savoured
Scotland on Sunday
Wry, clever, thoughtful, with a terrific sense of timing and eye for character.
Observer
Thrillingly paced and narrated ... What grips most about Lustrum is the seriousness with which the political issues at stake are taken, and the vividness of the characterisation
Spectator
Offers great insight into the psychology of political calculation
Independent
Deeply satisfying, impeccably researched and spectacularly topical ... This is a thriller to die for ... The pace never falters, and the politics are sharply relevant
Daily Mail