LOST TEN

An exhilarating Roman historical thriller which sees a ragtag group of elite Roman soldiers sent on a suicide mission. No man who enters the Castle of Silence ever walks out alive. A Persian fortress-prison set high in the mountains, escape is impossible and to break someone out, unthinkable. But this is exactly what Roman officer Marcus Aelius Valens must do. Set the task of rescuing the young Prince Sasan, Valens leads a small, elite squad of soldiers across Mesopotamia and into the mountains south of the Caspian Sea. As they journey deeper into enemy territory, the ten begin to die or disappear, one by one. With the rescue fast becoming a suicide mission, Valens must marshal this disparate group of men, or suffer the same fate as all those who have made the journey before him. Ben Kane has described this as 'relentless, brutal, brilliant, this is Jack Reacher in ancient Rome.' 380pp, paperback with historical afterword.