Allan Massie Boeken

Vanaf het moment dat Julius Caesar zijn vijanden Pompejus en Crassus heeft verslagen, ontstaat er een groeiende onrust onder zijn medestanders. Hebben zij er wel goed aan gedaan hem te steunen nu hij alle macht naar zichzelf toetrekt, de republikeinse macht aan de kant wil schuiven en zelfs goddelijkheid nastreeft? Door de ogen van een van hen, Decimus Brustus, zien we Caesar als de theatrale tovenaar en de generaal wiens soldaten hem blindelings volgen, ondanks dat hun vrouwen het bed met hem delen. Caesar is een heerser die met zijn talenten de megalomane ambities voedt om Alexander te overtroeven en die gaandeweg uitgroeit tot een koning en zelfs een god. Hij is een authoritaire man met een fabelachtige charme en een emotionele betrokkenheid die nihil is. Enorm is dan ook het effect van zo'n man op een groep nobele burgers, wier wrok en afgunst zo gemakkelijk kan worden gedempt onder mooie woorden over eer en vrijheid. Met als resultaat één van de bekendste moorden uit de geschiedenis.

The fourth and final chapter of the 'Bordeaux' novels, Allan Massie's acclaimed crime series featuring Superintendent Lannes.

The third instalment in Allan Massie's acclaimed crime series continues the story of dogged detection in a world seemingly gone mad.

In this personal history and celebration of Glasgow, Allan Massie uses contemporary accounts to trace the history from its 6th century founding, through its Victorian heyday and 20th century decline, to its current resurgence, marked by its selection as the 1990 Cultural Capital of Europe.

There are days, even in the bad times, even the worst, when you can still believe in the future, like that six o'clock in the morning three weeks ago when the bell rang and Dominique was there. Dominique, pale, wretchedly thin, exhausted, his hair cropped, but nevertheless Dominique. Lannes held him in his arms, neither able for a moment to speak.

'David comes alive in this novel as a fascinating, divided self, but you also feel on finishing it that you have understood a little more about the extraordinary world of the Middle East from which so much of our own Judaeo-Christian religion and civilisation spring. Modern parallels are never forced - Massie to too subtle a writer for that - but this world of sex, intrigue, war and religious mania suggests constantly to the reader not memories of the Bible but events in the newspapers in that very Hebron where David ruled as king' AN Wilson, Evening Standard

Augustus was the founder of the Roman Empire, adopted son of Julius Caesar, friend and later foe of Mark Antony, patron of Horace and Virgil. Frank and forceful, this putative autobiography tells his story from the assassination of Caesar, through his military, political and personal struggles to his final days as Emperor in everything but name.

Death in Bordeaux is the first in a trilogy that will take Lannes through the war and up to the grisly, but inevitable purge of those found guilty of German collaboration. However, this is also a novel that explores the moral complexity of France's time of trial, and the reasons why it has taken its people so long to emerge from the shadow of war.