The first of a new epic story from the author of the ‘Tyrant’ series. A historical novel, set in Greece but written in the modern and, it has to be said, American idiom (for example 'some Euboeoan bastard hit me on the head' and 'it didn't take me long to know, honey, that I was dead'). But this is an observation not a criticism - for it is the modernity of the writing that makes this story race along as quickly as any contemporary novel. No laborious grind through ancient history this. Pure escapism in every sense, this book is well worth a read.
Arimnestos is a farm boy when war breaks out between the citizens of his native Plataea and and their overbearing neighbours, Thebes. Standing in the battle line - the wall of bronze - for the first time, alongside his father and brother, he shares in a famous and unlikely victory. But after being knocked unconscious in the melee, he awakes not a hero, but a slave. Betrayed by his jealous and cowardly cousin, the freedom he fought for has now vanished, and he becomes the property of a rich citizen of Ephesus. So begins an epic journey from slavery that takes the young Arimnestos through a world poised on the brink of an epic confrontation, as the emerging civilization of the Greeks starts to flex its muscles against the established empire of the Persians. As he tries to make his fortune and revenge himself on the man who disinherited him, Arimnestos discovers that he has a talent that pays well in this new, violent world, for like his hero, Achilles, he is 'a killer of men'.
Christian Cameron is a writer, re-enactor and military historian. He is a veteran of the United States Navy, where he served as both an aviator and an intelligence officer. He now lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter, where he writes full time.
