Ancient Mystery Fiction

An ugly civil war has just ended in Israel. One lone woman's death in the territory belonging to the tribe of Benjamin has shocked the nation. Fathers, brothers, and sons joined the army to demand justice. The guilty must pay for such a crime, and so they have. As everyone is left picking up the pieces, Benjamin has lost the most. Cities are burned to the ground, and Benjamin itself is in danger of disappearing. The once mighty tribe has been reduced to a mere 600 men.

The Dowager Duchess has decided to sell off the less important family possessions. Blotto and Twinks are dispatched to help the valuer. He spies some Egyptian artifacts and in some excitement rushes back to London, leaving Blotto and Twinks alone in the attic, where they are drawn to a sarchophagus decorated with hieroglyphs. Twinks starts to translate: "Anyone who desecrates this shrine will be visited by the Pharoah's curse..." - just as Blotto prises the lid off.

Brothers. Emperors. Deadly enemies... An unputdownable novel of intrigue and combat in Ancient Rome. Emperor Severus is on his deathbed. His sons Geta and Caracalla, feuding in Britannia, are readying for a devastating power struggle. Silus, now a centurion in the Arcani, the secrete network of spies and assassins, is thrown into the maelstrom. Back in Ancient Rome, plots breed in the stinking alleys. Everyone might be an enemy. Everyone a traitor. As an Imperial Assassin, Silus’ loyalty will be tested to breaking point.

Britannia - AD 60. When her husband dies, Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, expects Rome to enter into a new power-sharing agreement with her people. However, when Rome reneges on the agreement and her daughters are raped by Roman soldiers, Boudicca raises an army to fight back against the occupation. The Britannic tribes rise up and join her in a campaign against their oppressors, and soon her enormous army is sweeping across Britannia in an unstoppable campaign of brutality.

Douglas Island sits off the coast of New York State, its imposing cliffs warning away visitors. Still, Finn Douglas has big plans for his inheritance and the rambling manor house that dominates the landscape. He has a vision to turn the island into a resort getaway for overworked city dwellers. But when the broken body of his business partner is found at the base of the rocky escarpment, he fears it wasn’t an accident.

AD 69. The year of the four emperors. Three emperors have ruled in Rome this year and a fourth, Vespasian, has been named in the East. As the legions march toward civil war, Sebastos Pantera, the spy whose name means leopard, returns to Rome intent on bribery, blackmail and persuasion: whatever it takes to bring the commanders and their men to Vespasian's side. But in Rome, as he uses every skill he has ever learned of subterfuge, codes and camouflage, it becomes clear that one of those closest to him is a traitor who will let Rome fall to destroy him.

It is 1066 and the Saxon leadership lie dead at Senlac Hill. Only Aelfraed and his northern rebels hold out against the Norman war machine. Fighting treachery as well as Normans Aelfraed and his warriors bravely take the fight to the Normans. Forced to become outlaws they fight a rearguard action from the northern forests until William relentlessly hunts them down.

Sebastos Pantera, known to his many enemies as the Leopard and something of a lone wolf, is the spy the Emperor Nero uses only for the most challenging and important of missions. His next mission: to find the most dangerous man in Rome's empire and bring him to bloody justice. His prey is cunning, subtle and ruthless. Saulos has pledged to bring about the destruction of Rome and her provinces, and now fate, good luck and planning have given him the means to do so. The brilliance of Saulos' plan will be difficult to combat, but Pantera has a new ally.

Rome, 56 BC. The great general Pompey has conquered the East; Julius Caesar is defeating the Gauls; only Egypt, with its strategic granaries and vast treasuries of gold, still eludes the grasp of Rome. The city itself is becoming ever more corrupt, as the last generation of the Roman Republic indulges in political backstabbing, endless lawsuits, scandalous love affairs, and the occasional murder.

Geophysicist Jack Greer believes he may finally have found the resting place of the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago. A few miles off the Yucatán coast, Jack and a team of scientists tow an aging drilling platform over the impact crater with the aim of securing a sample. But buried deep beneath the earth lies a shocking discovery that threatens to shatter everything we think we know about the origins of our species.

USA Today hails Steven Saylor as a “modern master of historical fiction.” Rich in intrigue and period detail, his novels set in ancient Rome have garnered acclaim the world over. A prequel to his epic Roma Sub Rosa series, The Seven Wonders follows series star Gordianus the Finder as an 18-year-old traveling the Mediterranean to witness the wonders of that fabled age. At each stop, the young investigator finds a beguiling mystery that pushes his powers of deduction to the limit.

The murder of an esteemed archaeologist is fueling an already heated war between natives and the academics who excavate their land. And when the coroner confirms that the victim was cannibalized, the story takes a twisted turn. Private eye Howard Moon Deer and ex-police chief Jack Wilder are on the case. The killing appears to be a modern mimicry of the Anasazi's rumored past - one the tribe thinks would be best left buried. But Howard and Jack must search for clues even if it means digging up sacred land. As they struggle to fight tribal politics, the killer strikes again.

Sani Natonaba's ancestors have lived in these canyons for more than 700 years, but they aren't the only ones. When he awakens to the bleating of his family's sheep being slaughtered, he learns that something is stalking this isolated corner of the reservation, a predator unlike any he has encountered before, one that attacks with alarming stealth and ferocity. Only his grandfather knows what lurks outside in the darkness, but a stroke has left him unable to communicate, forcing Sani to embark upon a journey into the distant past to discover the horrible truth.

It was like a nightmare, but there was no waking up. When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love. When it ended, she had nothing but blood on her hands and an echoing scream that stopped only when the tranquilizers pierced her veins and left her in the merciful dark. But the next morning, it was all still true: Chris was dead. His girlfriend Adriane, Nora's best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora's sweet, smart, soft-spoken Prince Charming, was gone.

Throughout their married lives, baseball star Gaspar Bethlen's wife gave him a lovingly crafted mystery every year for Christmas. Solving the clues led him to his present, but the mysteries themselves were the true gift. Now, Beth has died, leaving Gasper a wreck of a man. But Beth left behind a clue, the beginning of one final Christmas mystery, and it's much more than either of them expected.

The old salt farmers have always said that the violet scent of the Fleur de Sel at harvest time on the salt marshes of the Guerande Peninsula has been known to cause hallucinations. Commissaire Dupin also starts to believe this when he's attacked out of the blue in the salt works. He had actually been looking forward to escaping his endless paperwork and taking a trip to the "white country" between the raging Atlantic Ocean and idyllic rivers.

This is the classic story of the young Theseus - Prince of Troizen, King of Eleusis and Athens, slayer of the Minotaur. Mary Renault's powerful novel captures the modern imagination by weaving myth, legend, history, and fiction into the story of a young hero's search for his destiny, or moira. If you like The King Must Die, try The Bull from the Sea.

A teenage boy becomes stranded in the remote woodlands of Northern Canada after his bush plane crashes and he is left as the sole survivor. With next to nothing, except the clothes on his back and a few items found from the crash site, he struggles to survive. He faces many dangers, but the biggest danger, one far greater than starvation, hypothermia or the threat of predators, is the danger he never sees coming until it’s almost too late.

Throughout the Roman Army, the brutal XIIth Legion is notorious for its ill fortune. For one young man, Demalion of Macedon, joining it will be a baptism of fire. And yet, amid all of the violence and savagery of his life as a legionary, he will come to love the Twelfth and the bloody-minded, dark-hearted soldiers he calls his brothers. But during the punishing Judaean campaign, the Hebrew army inflict a catastrophic defeat upon the legion - not only decimating their ranks, but taking away their soul - the eagle.

A mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has triggered a catastrophic countdown that will climax in no less than the end of all life on Earth. But Jack and his team might be able to ward off the coming Armageddon if they can find the fabled Six Sacred Stones.