Robert Harris was born in 1957. He is a former journalist and BBC television reporter who lives in West Berkshire with his wife,
Gill Hornby and although he started writing non-fiction, he is now the well-known author of a number of bestselling historical novels: the Cicero Trilogy – Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator – Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index and An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Several of his books have been filmed, most recently The Ghost, which was directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Conclave – Sept 2016
The Pope is dead.
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election. They are holy men, but they have ambition and they have rivals.
Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.
An Officer and A Spy – Sept 2013
This is a gripping historical thriller set in Paris in 1895. An army officer, Georges Picquart, watches a convicted spy, Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of a baying crowd. Dreyfus is exiled for life to Devil’s Island and Picquart is promoted to run the intelligence unit that tracked him down.
When Picquart discovers that secrets are still being handed over to the Germans, he is drawn into a dangerous labyrinth of deceit and corruption that threatens not just his honour but his life…
Imperium – Sept 2010
This is the middle book of the Cicero Trilogy.
Ancient Rome is the setting for this novel. When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history.
The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island’s corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium – supreme power in the state.
Compellingly written in Tiro’s voice, this novel takes us inside the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, to describe how one man – clever, compassionate, devious and vulnerable – fought to reach the top.