Jack Ludlow Libros

History and adventure, brutality and courage combine to powerful effect, making The Last Roman an outstanding series

Rome has lost its greatest warrior - for Aulus, the doom-laden prophecy of forty years earlier has come to pass. It is now left to Lucius to defy the oracle's curse alone, and the corrupt senator leaves nothing to chance in his bid to survive. But one boy, alone in the world, holds the key to his fate, and the future of the Roman Republic.

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.

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?

A cave hacked out of the rock, lit by flickering torches - two young boys appeal to the famed Roman oracle for a glimpse into their future. The Sybil draws a blood-red shape of an eagle with wings outstretched. An omen of death. As they flee from the cave in fear, Aulus and Lucius make an oath of loyalty until death.

In twenty years, the de Hauteville brothers have gone from penniless obscurity to become the most potent warrior family in Christendom: depended on by the Pope, feared by Byzantium and respected by the Holy Roman Emperor. Now, at the head of the tribe stands Robert, who has only one aim: to expand his power by military conquest.

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.

The sons of Tancred de Hauteville are following in their father's footsteps. As knights, they have but one true purpose: to fight. But denied service with their duke, they are forced to take employment as mercenaries: their unequalled battle skills are for hire to the highest bidder.

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?

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.