Lustrum - Robert Harris

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