Book description
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.
Robert Harris is the author of
Fatherland
,
Enigma
,
Archangel
,
Pompeii
,
Imperium
and
The Ghost
, all of which were international bestsellers. His latest novel,
Lustrum,
has just been published. 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
Newsnight
programmes, before becoming political editor of the
Observer
and subsequently a columnist on the
Sunday Times
and the
Daily Telegraph
. The film of
The Ghost
- for which he co-wrote the screenplay - directed by Roman Polanski and
starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan is due to be released at the
beginning of 2010. He is married to Gill Hornby and they live with their
four children in a village near Hungerford.
