Robert Harris

Julius Caesar is dead, and the lives of two teenaged boys are about to be changed forever. One is Caesar’s 17-year-old nephew, Octavius, whom he has made his heir. The other is Octavius’s closest friend, Agrippa. To claim Octavius’s inheritance, they must fight the giant figures of the Roman Empire – and, against all odds, they win. Octavius becomes the Emperor Augustus. For twenty years, they rule the world together. Now Agrippa is fifty. Ailing and alone, betrayed by his wife’s infidelity, he takes refuge in his house on the Bay of Naples and begins to write his memoirs. Yet to stir up the past can be dangerous. From his earliest meetings with Julius Caesar, through the epic conflict with Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the great naval battle of Actium and the endless wars to expand the empire, he describes how one man has dominated his life: the cunning, ruthless, unknowable Octavius. When it comes to power, does friendship exist at all?

THE BOOK OF THE YEAR, THE TIMES, INDEPENDENT, SPECTATOR, i NEWS A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB AND A SUNDAY TIMES SUMMER READS PICK 2025 ‘A riveting tale of politics, war and erotic obsession’ Sunday Times ‘A slam dunk of a plot . . . extraordinary’ Nicholas Coleridge, Independent Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe. In London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley – aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless – is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state. As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer is assigned to investigate a leak of top secret documents – and suddenly what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that will alter the course of political history. Seamlessly weaving fact and fiction in a way that no writer does better, Precipice is the thrilling new novel from Robert Harris.

THE POWER OF GOD. THE AMBITION OF MEN. THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER NOW AN BAFTA AND OSCAR WINNING MOVIE. Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, 118 cardinals are meeting in conclave to cast their votes in the world's most secretive election. They are holy men. But they are ambitious. And they have rivals. Over the next 72 hours, one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth. Who will it be? 'Unputdownable' Guardian 'Gripping' Sunday Times

During a sweltering week in late August, as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong. Wells and springs are failing, a man has disappeared, and now the greatest aqueduct in the world - the mighty Aqua Augusta - has suddenly ceased to flow . . . Through the eyes of four characters - a young engineer, an adolescent girl, a corrupt millionaire and an elderly scientist - Robert Harris brilliantly recreates a luxurious world on the brink of destruction.

'A belter of a thriller' THE TIMES 'A master storyteller . . . an important book for our particular historical moment' OBSERVER 'His best since Fatherland' SUNDAY TIMES 'From what is it they flee?' He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, 'They killed the King.' 1660. Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, cross the Atlantic. Having been found guilty of high treason for the murder of Charles the I, they are wanted and on the run. A reward hangs over their heads - for their capture, dead or alive. In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He'll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. Act of Oblivion is an epic journey across continents, and a chase like no other. 'A ripping page-turner' FINANCIAL TIMES 'You could not do better than this' DAILY TELEGRAPH

'A pure thriller . . . wry, clever, thoughtful, with a terrific sense of timing and eye for character' Observer 'No one delivers thrilling yet timeless games of power, sex, fame and Rome like Robert Harris' Sunday Telegraph Rome, 63 BC. Seven men are struggling for power: Cicero the consul, Caesar his ruthless rival, Pompey the republic's greatest general, Crassus its richest man, Cato a political fanatic, Catilina a psychopath and Clodius an ambitious playboy. These real historical figures - their alliances and betrayals, their cruelties and seductions - are all interleaved in Lustrum, through its narrator Tiro, a confidential secretary to Cicero. He knows all his master's secrets - a dangerous position to be in. 'Thoroughly engaging . . . The allure of power and the perils that attend it have seldom been so brilliantly anatomised in a thriller' Sunday Times

'Masterful' Sunday Times 'Gripping and accomplished' Guardian 'Truly gifted, razor-sharp' Daily Telegraph Ancient Rome teems with ambitious and ruthless men. None is more brilliant than Marcus Cicero. A rising young lawyer, backed by a shrewd wife, he decides to gamble everything on one of the most dramatic courtroom battles of all time. Win it, and he could win control of Rome itself. Lose it, and he is finished forever. Imperium is an epic account of the timeless struggle for power and the sudden disintegration of a society. 'In Harris' hands, the great game becomes a beautiful one' The Times 'A further step forward by this brilliant man who excels in everything he writers' Sunday Telegraph

'Confirms Harris's undisputed place as our leading master of both the historical and contemporary thriller' Daily Mail 'Climatic in every sense . . . I could not put it down' Guardian There was a time when Cicero held Caesar's life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure and Cicero's life is in ruins. Cicero's comeback requires wit, skill and courage. And for a brief and glorious period, the legendary orator is once more the supreme senator in Rome. But politics is never static. And no statesman, however cunning, can safeguard against the ambition and corruption of others. 'The finest fictional treatment of Ancient Rome in the English language' The Scotsman

'Immersive' Guardian 'Stunning' Daily Express 'Riveting' Telegraph Victory is close. Vengeance is closer. Rudi Graf used to dream of sending a rocket to the moon. Instead, he has helped to create the world's most sophisticated weapon: the V2 ballistic missile, capable of delivering a one-ton warhead at three times the speed of sound. In a desperate gamble to avoid defeat in the winter of 1944, Hitler orders ten thousand to be built. Graf is tasked with firing these lethal 'vengeance weapons' at London. Kay Caton-Walsh is an officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force who joins a unit of WAAFs on a mission to newly liberated Belgium. Armed with little more than a slide rule and a few equations, Kay and her colleagues will attempt to locate and destroy the launch sites. As the death toll soars, Graf and Kay fight their grim, invisible war - until one final explosion of violence causes their destinies to collide... 'A riveting read with a corker of a twist' Daily Telegraph 'Supremely readable' Observer 'Delivers one hell of a punch' Express 'Captures the real nature of war. Gripping' Ben MacIntyre