Harry Sidebottom Collection 4 Books Set (The Burning Road, The Return, The Lost Ten, The Last Hour)

Harry Sidebottom Collection brings together four novels set against the backdrop of the ancient world: The Burning Road, The Return, The Lost Ten and The Last Hour. Spanning different eras and locations, the set moves from Sicily in AD265 to Calabria in 145BC, and onwards to Mesopotamia and Rome.

Across the collection, uprisings, murders and high-risk missions drive the action. From a shipwreck met with violence on Sicily’s west coast, to a soldier seeking a quiet life only to find death close behind, each story places its characters in immediate danger. Elsewhere, a Roman officer is ordered to attempt the unthinkable: breaking into a remote mountain fortress prison to rescue a young prince. The set concludes with a dramatic moment in Rome, as a lone figure on the Mausoleum of Hadrian realises he has been set up and makes a desperate escape into the flooded river below.

Included titles

• The Burning Road
• The Return
• The Lost Ten
• The Last Hour

Synopses

The Burning Road

AD265: In the shadow of Mount Etna, slaves rise in rebellion as their leader declares Sicily a new land of the free. As men and women are slaughtered and cities are sacked and burned, a ship wrecks off the island’s west coast. All but two survivors are cut down in the surf by rebel slaves.

The Return

145BC, Calabria: After years of fighting for Rome, Gaius Furius Paullus returns home intending to spend his remaining days working on the family farm. Soon after his arrival, bodies begin to appear, murdered and mutilated, and it seems death has followed him from the battlefield.

The Lost Ten

No one who enters the Castle of Silence ever leaves alive. The remote fortress prison stands high in the mountains, where escape is impossible and any attempt to break someone out is unthinkable. Roman officer Marcus Aelius Valens is tasked with rescuing the young Prince Sasan, leading a small elite squad across Mesopotamia and into the mountains south of the Caspian Sea.

The Last Hour

A lone figure stands on the Mausoleum of Hadrian as the sun sets over the centre of the known world. With the river in full flood and the City of Rome spread across the far bank, he hears footsteps on the stairs and realises he has been set up. Cornered as an enemy closes in, he jumps into the raging river and claws his way out, bruised and battered.