The Blood of Alexandria - Tapa dura

'Fascinating to read, very well written, an intriguing plot and I enjoyed it very much.' -- Derek Jacobi on CONSPIRACIES OF ROME 'I can't resist recommending this first volume of a promised trilogy. Set during the last pangs of Imperial Rome, with a vivid account of the machinations of the early Church, it is well-informed, atmospheric and beautifully written.' -- Literary Review on CONSPIRACIES OF ROME 'It's simply the best historical novel I've ever read, perhaps short of C.S. Forester. It's a very great deal better than any of the ancient Roman detective novels I've seen.' -- L. Neil Smith on CONSPIRACIES OF ROME

The tears of Alexander shall flow, giving bread and freedom ...612 AD. Egypt, the jewel of the Roman Empire, seethes with unrest, as bread runs short and the Persians plot an invasion. In Alexandria, a city divided between Greeks and Egyptians by language, religion and far too few soldiers, the mummy of the Great Alexander, dead for nine hundred years, still has the power to calm the mob -- or inflame it ...Aelric, the young British clerk who has become a senator and the trusted henchman of Emperor Heraclius, has come to Alexandria to send Egypt's harvest to Constantinople and to force the unwilling viceroy to give its land to the peasants. But the city -- with its factions and conspirators -- thwarts him at every turn. And when an old enemy from Constantinople arrives, supposedly on a quest for a religious relic that could turn the course of the Persian war, he will have to use all his cunning, his charm and his talent for violence to survive.