The Veiled Assassin

"The Veiled Assassin" is the first in Q. V. Hunter's ground-breaking series, 'The Embers of Empire,' introducing Roman fiction fans to a little-used setting when the Republic and Imperium periods had become fading memories.The Dominate period ruled by Emperors Constans, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate, and the Valentinian brothers was a world of usurping barbarian generals, competing Christian factions, intrigant eunuchs, overstretched borders, and the rise of the rival 'New Roma' or Constantinople in the East.In this first adventure, "The Veiled Assassin" pits young Marcus Gregorianus Numidianus, half-Numidian bastard slave-turned-spy, against religious suicide martyrs destroying the stability of Roman African colonial exports vital to a hungry empire. Even if Marcus' mission to find the powerful mastermind behind the mutilating ambushes is a success, will his army master honor an obligation to free the stubborn young volunteer hero?Once trained at the Castra Peregrina, Roma's notorious intelligence headquarters in Rome, Marcus will survive to face Gallo-Roman army rebels, corrupt eunuchs controlling the East, and a pair of Christian emperors inheriting a bankrupt empire in the face of Goths, Alemanni, Saxons, Berbers, Persians, and Franks-all amidst embers of a world blindly smoldering toward its extinction. Migrant surges, religious suicide martyrs, imperialist commodity extraction, spiritual faddism, gender battles, child sex abuse, people-trafficking-even a forerunner of Brexit-it all happened already to the men and women of the second half of the 4th century, now vividly depicted in this exciting espionage action series delighting fans of Bernard Cornwell, Steven Saylor, and Robert Harris.