This author delves into the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with a passionate expertise. This deep fascination with the era of battles and sailing ships informs his extensive novels, transporting readers back in time. His narrative skill lies in bringing the past to life with compelling characters and authentic detail.
The Hundred Years' War is over and newly-knighted Sir John Hawkswood is headed for France to make his fortune as a freebooter. Violence and extortion are rife, and the freebooters will stop at nothing to capture the Papal City of Avignon. This is only the beginning.
History and adventure, brutality and courage combine to powerful effect, making The Last Roman an outstanding series
Justinian, a paranoid leader, desperately wants the lost provinces returned to his rule but must first dispatch his brave general, Belisaurius to fight the Persians in the East. Justinian grows concerned that Belisaurius will grow successful and courageous in his feats, thus becoming a threat to his power and person. He subsequently dispatches him on a near-impossible mission to North Africa to take back from the Vandals what was once Ancient Carthage. Meanwhile back in Constantinople, Marcus Donatus has found favor with Empress Theodora, wife of Justinian, in the hopes of being able to influence Justinian himself.
Thanks to the stratagems of Bohemund de Hauteville,the Crusade has taken the city of Antioch.A huge Turkish-led army is fast approaching. With the enemy at his front and his warring peers at his back, can he gain the mighty city of Antioch once and for all? Only one of the greatest battles of the age will decide.
Who can Flavius Belisarius call an enemy? The Goths he must fight to take Italy back for the Byzantium. Or is if the intrigues of the Empress Theodora, who fears his ambitions. There is his own wife, betraying him in more than one way and Justinian, the unreliable emperor he helped to the throne?
The Pope has called for a Crusade to free Jerusalem, and half the warriors of Europe have responded. Among them is the Norman, Count Bohemund, one-time enemy of Byzantium. His first task, pushing back the Infidel Turks, calls for an alliance with old enemy Emperor Alexius. But can the Crusaders trust the wily Emperor?
Under Robert Guiscard, the de Hautevilles have grown in importance and power throughout Italy and, through the Papacy, all of Christendom. Now it is Robert's son Bohemund's turn to take up arms - the opportunity to fight under the papal banner in the Holy Lands could bring him the glory and riches he desires.
As Hitler sets his sights on the Sudetenland, not everyone in Britain is willing to appease him. Convinced that the Fuehrer's land-hunger is insatiable, the head of the SIS recruits Cal Jardine to help him prove zechoslovakia is threatened with invasion.
Having returned from Abyssinia, soldier of fortune Cal Jardine is convinced to travel to Barcelona and help facilitate rival athletic games to the Berlin Olympics. But now he finds himself in Spain as the first shots of civil war ring out; and the demands of friendship, love, and politics embroil Jardine once again in foreign war.
1935: Harry Jardine is a soldier of fortune. Forced to flee Hamburg after helping Jews escape Nazi Germany, he is recruited to smuggle guns from Rumania into Abyssinia, under threat of Italian invasion. But seeing how ill-equipped the Ethiopians are to face the Italian army, can Jardine just walk away?