Ancient Thriller Mysteries

The Aventine is full of fracturing families. Wives plot to leave their husbands, husbands plot to spend more time with their mistresses. Masters must endure slaves taking obscene liberties, while aggressive slaves are learning to ape dangerous masters. But no one wants to hire an investigator during the holiday. Albia is lumped with her own domestic stress: overexcited children and bilious guests, too many practical jokes and her magistrate husband Tiberius preoccupied with local strife.

It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short, the nights are for wild parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. But the logistics go wrong.

Julius Caesar left his gardens to the citizens of Rome, a peaceful sanctuary across the Tiber. Now the gardens and their sacred grove are dangerous haunts, especially for women alone. 'Don't go to the Grove,' people mutter, but when her husband has to leave Rome, it falls to Albia to supervise his building project in an old grotto. Why has someone buried tattered scrolls by obscure philosophers - and does it involve a worse crime than terrible writing? Soon that puzzle is overtaken.

Assyria, in the reign of Ashurbanipal. For Aurya and her daydreaming brother, Sharo, every day is a struggle for survival, as they dodge the beatings of their drunken father and scrabble for scraps of food. One violent evening, everything changes. Soon, they are on the barge of King Ashurbanipal, bound for the beautiful, near-mythical city of Nineveh.

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.

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.

They were born in the middle of a battle, into a world at war. And from their first moments of life, twins Satyrus and Melitta were fighting for survival. Their father, a Greek mercenary, was cut down not long after they had taken their first breath; their Scythian mother was cruelly murdered when they were still children.

The year is 63 BC, and Gordianus the Finder unexpectedly achieves the dream of every Roman: owning a farm in the Etruscan countryside. Vowing to leave behind the corruption of Rome, he abandons the city, taking his family with him. This bucolic life, however, is disrupted by the machinations and murderous plots of two politicians.

Set in the years before the Battle of Hastings, the story follows the trials and tribulations of Aelfraed, a young boy who aspires to be a warrior. When his uncle, Aethelward, takes him to join the warriors of Harold Godwinson, his life is irrevocably changed. Fighting the Welsh brings him great honour and when he saves the life of Edward the Confessor, he becomes a man of great reputation. The novel culminates in the battle of Stamford Bridge when the Housecarls defeated the last of the Vikings, Harald Hadrada.

From Kirk Mitchell comes a riveting suspense thriller in the tradition of Tony Hillerman and Joseph Wambaugh, featuring Bureau of Indian Affairs Criminal Investigator Emmett Quanah Parker and FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed, two Native American cops searching for justice between their heritage and the law.

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.

In 88 BC, it seems as if the entire ancient world is at war. In the west, the Italian states are rebelling against Rome; in the east, Mithridates is marching through and conquering the Roman Asian provinces. Even in the relatively calm Alexandria, a coup has brought a new pharaoh to power and chaos to the streets. The young Gordianus is waiting out the chaos in Alexandria with Bethesda when he gets a cryptic message from his former tutor and friend, Antipater.

Elle Newmark's richly seductive prose brings to life the color and scandal of 15th-century Venice. Through Luciano, a street urchin apprenticed to a great chef in the palace of the doge, Newmark tells a wicked tale of political and papal intrigue. In Venice where every whisper is a secret or a lie, Luciano's initiation into the chef's spicy world makes for deliciously suspenseful listening.

South of Rome on the Gulf of Puteoli stands the splendid villa of Marcus Crassus, Rome's wealthiest citizen. When the estate overseer is murdered, Crassus concludes that the deed was done by two missing slaves, who have probably run off to join the Spartacan Slave Revolt. Unless they are found within three days, Crassus vows to massacre his remaining 99 slaves.

From the palaces of Alexandria reigns Cleopatra – seventh of her name, avatar of the goddess Isis, ruler of the Kingdom of Egypt – surrounded by riches untold. Through the streets of her great city bustle scholars and sailors, politicians and priests. For those with the means, it is a comfortable life. But not all are invited to share in the wealth of Egypt's first city. When Herminia, one of Alexandria's most beloved actresses, disappears on the eve of a great performance, Cleopatra sets Tetisheri, her Eye, to investigate.

From the author of the “engrossing historical epic” (Booklist) The Scribe of Siena comes a thrilling tale set in the crumbling city of Mystras, Greece, in which a scientist’s vacation with her young son quickly turns into a fight for their lives after they cross paths with a man out of time.

This is the saga of a Spartan family, torn apart by a cruel law that forces them to abandon one of their two sons, born lame, to the elements. The elder son, Brithos, is raised in the caste of the warriors, while the other, Talos, is spared a cruel death and is raised by a Helot shepherd, among the peasants.

Indie Blackwood is a popular cheerleader with a football-star boyfriend. On the surface, her life looks perfect. But when a guy dies right before her eyes and an ancient family Bible is stolen, Indie's world spirals into darkness. Turns out, Indie has a destiny. And it involves much more than pom-poms and parties. If she doesn't get the Bible back, every witch on the planet will die. And that's seriously bad news for Indie, because according to Bishop, the hot warlock who has an uncanny knowledge of everything that matters, she's a witch, too.

936 AD. Brittany is torn apart by war. Many nobles have sought refuge in King aethelstan's England, including Louis, prospective king of Francia. Einar and the Wolf Coats, disillusioned by events in Norway, are also at aethelstan's court. When Louis decides to take up his throne, aethelstan sees a way to make a crucial ally: a powerful noble whose support Louis needs. And aethelstan has just the men he needs to carry his message... and undertake a secret mission.The Wolf Coats' quest is fraught with danger and foreboding, for the world is changing.

Victory is in sight for Kivilaz and his Batavi army. The Roman army clings desperately to its remaining fortresses along the Rhine, its legions riven by dissent and mutiny, and once-loyal allies of Rome are beginning to imagine the unimaginable: freedom from the rulers who have dominated them since the time of Caesar. The four centurions - two Batavi and two Roman, men who were once comrades in arms - must find their destiny in a maze of loyalties and threats, as the blood tide of war ebbs and flows across Germania and Gaul.