Robert Harris is the author of fifteen bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave, Munich, The Second Sleep, V2 and Act of Oblivion. His work has been translated into forty languages and nine of his books have been adapted for cinema and television. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.

Robert Harris

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'A writer who handles suspense like a literary Alfred Hitchcock' Nelson Mandela 
 
April, 1964. The naked body of an old man floats in a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. In one week it will be Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday. A terrible conspiracy is starting to unravel . . . 
 
'Robert Harris has created the whole structure of a totally corrupt society in a way that makes the flesh creep' Sunday Times 
'Powerful and chilling . . . convincing in every detail' Daily Telegraph 
'Clever and ingenious . . . its breeding is by Orwell, out of P.D. James, a detective story inside a future shock' Daily Mail

Fatherland

'Impossible to stop reading' OBSERVER 
'Thrilling, intricate and hilarious' DAILY MAIL 
 
APRIL 1945: From the ruins of Berlin, a Luftwaffe transport plane takes off carrying secret papers belonging to Adolf Hitler. Half an hour later, it crashes in flames. 
 
APRIL 1983: In a bank vault in Switzerland, a German magazine offers to sell more than 50 volumes of Hitler's secret diaries. The asking price is $4 million. 
 
40 years from the alleged discovery, Robert Harris chronicles the gripping tale of one of the biggest frauds in history. 
 
'Brilliantly chronicled' NEW STATESMAN 
'A masterly account' LITERARY REVIEW

Selling Hitler

40th Anniversary Special Edition

The Story of the Hitler Diaries

Anton Lesser stars as a Berlin detective who stumbles upon the 20th century's most terrifying secret in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Robert Harris's bestselling novel.  The year is 1964, and it's a week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Nazi Germany won the Second World War, Churchill is living in exile in Canada, Joseph Kennedy is President of the United States, and King Edward and Queen Wallis are puppet monarchs of the United Kingdom. In this dimension, history took a very different turn in 1942 to the one we are familiar with...  Produced by the award-winning John Dryden, this dramatisation of Robert Harris's thriller, with an atmospheric soundtrack recorded on location, is a rollercoaster ride of intrigue, suspense and passion.

'With Archangel, Robert Harris confirms his position as Britain's pre-eminent literary thriller writer' The Times 
 
'He has a talent for heart-poundingly tense story-telling, and an ability to conjure up atmospheres almost palpable with menace' Sunday Times 
 
When historian Fluke Kelso learns of the existence of a secret notebook belonging to Josef Stalin he is determined to track it down, whatever the consequences. From the violent political intrigue and decadence of modern Moscow he heads north - to the vast forests surrounding the White Sea port of Archangel, and a terrifying encounter with Russia's unburied past.

Archangel

'A pulse-rate-speeding masterpiece' Sunday Times 
 
'A stunning novel . . . the subtlety and power of its construction holds our attention to the end' The 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. 
 
'As explosive as Etna, as addictive as a thriller, as satisfying as great history' Daily Telegraph

Pompeii

Welcome inside the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, and learn how one man - clever, compassionate, devious, vulnerable - fought to reach the top.

'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

Lustrum

This epic trilogy by Robert Harris includes his bestselling novels: Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator 
 
Imperium - Compellingly written in Tiro's voice, Imperium takes us inside the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, to describe how one man - clever, compassionate, devious, vulnerable - fought to reach the top. 
 
Lustrum - From the discovery of a child's mutilated body, through judicial execution and a scandalous trial, to the brutal unleashing of the Roman mob, Lustrum is a study in the timeless enticements and horrors of power. 
 
Dictator - Riveting and tumultuous, Dictator encompasses some of the most epic events in human history yet is also an intimate portrait of a brilliant, flawed, frequently fearful yet ultimately brave man – a hero for his time and for ours. 
 
This is an unforgettable collection from a master storyteller.

The Cicero Trilogy

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.

Precipice

IN THE HUNT FOR A SPY, HE EXPOSED A CONSPIRACY 
 
'Seriously riveting . . . a testament to Robert Harris's storytelling power' The Times 
 
'Taut and exciting' Guardian 
 
Paris, 1895: an army officer, Georges Picquart, watches a convicted spy, Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of a baying crowd. 
 
Dreyfus is exiled for life to Devil's Island; Picquart is promoted to run the intelligence until that tracked him down. 
 
But when Picquart discovers that secrets are still being handed over to the Germans, he is forced to confront the dangerous truth that Dreyfus may be innocent. 
 
Soon Picquart is being drawn into a labyrinth of deceit and corruption that threatens not just his honour but his life . . . 
 
'Menace and suspense twist tight in a narrative of tremendous tension' Sunday Times

An Officer and a Spy

WHAT IF YOUR FUTURE LIES IN THE PAST? 
 
'One word: wonderful. Two words: compulsive reading. Three words: buy it tomorrow. Four words: tonight, if possible.' STEPHEN KING 
 
'A thoroughly absorbing, page-turning narrative.' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Genuinely thrilling.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
Dusk is gathering as a young priest, Christopher Fairfax, rides across a silent land. 
He must arrive at a remote village in the wilds of Exmoor before night falls. He's lost and he's becoming anxious as he slowly picks his way across a countryside strewn with the ancient artefacts of a civilisation that seems to have ended in cataclysm. 
 
What Fairfax cannot know is that, in the days and weeks to come, everything he believes in will be tested as he uncovers a secret that is as dangerous as it is terrifying . . . 
'[Harris] takes us on a thrilling ride while serving up serious food for thought.' SUNDAY EXPRESS 
 
'A truly surprising future-history thriller. Fabulous, really.' EVENING STANDARD 
 
'The book's real power lies in its between-the-lines warning that our embrace of the internet represents some kind of sleepwalk into oblivion. It's a provocative, tub-thumping sci-fi of which H. G. Wells might have been proud.' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Harris' latest work intelligently warps historical fiction and tackles issues of religion, science and the apocalypse in the process. As he flexes his imagination, you will be left pondering as often as you are page-turning.' HERALD 
 
'A brilliantly imaginative thriller' READER'S DIGEST

The Second Sleep

'Harris is a master of pace and entertainment' Observer 
 
'Could scarcely be more of the moment' The Times 
 
Nothing spreads like fear . . . 
 
In the secretive inner circle of the ultra-rich, Alex Hoffmann is a legend. 
 
He has developed an algorithm for playing the financial markets that generates billions of pounds - and feeds on panic. 
 
When one day his system is threatened by a terrifying intruder who breaches the elaborate security of his lakeside home, his life becomes a waking nightmare of violence and paranoia. 
 
But who is trying to destroy him? And is it already too late? 
 
'There are moments when this book feels so up to date it could have been written next week . . . spookily exciting' Express

The Fear Index

'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

Imperium

'An unputdownable thriller about corrupt power and sex' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'Guaranteed to keep you awake' The Times 
 
A body washes up on the deserted coastline of America's most exclusive holiday retreat. But it's no open-and-shut case of suicide. The death of Robert McAra is just the first piece of the jigsaw in an extraordinary plot that will shake the very foundations of international security. 
 
For McAra was a man who knew too much. As ghostwriter to one of the most controversial men on the planet - Britain's former prime minister, holed up in a remote ocean-front house to finish his memoirs - he stumbled across secrets which cost him his life. 
 
When a new ghostwriter is sent out to rescue the project it could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Or the start of a deadly assignment propelled by deception and intrigue - from which there will be no escape . . . 
 
'Brilliantly persuasive, right up to the last page of its astonishing and unpredictable conclusion' Economist 
 
'Truly thrilling' Sunday Times

The Ghost

'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

Dictator

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

Conclave

'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

'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

Act of Oblivion

'Top-class' The Times 
 
March 1943, the war hangs in the balance, and at Bletchley Park Tom Jericho, a brilliant young codebreaker, is facing a double nightmare. The Germans have unaccountably changed their U-boat Enigma code, threatening a massive Allied defeat. And as suspicion grows that there may be a spy inside Bletchley, Jericho's girlfriend, the beautiful and mysterious Claire Romilly, suddenly disappears. 
 
'A compulsive page turner' Daily Mail 
'As human, intelligent and gripping as documentary fiction can get' Financial Times

Enigma

'A brilliantly constructed spy novel' Observer 
 
'Grips from start to finish ... Superb' Mail on Sunday 
 
MUNICH, SEPTEMBER 1938 
 
Hitler is determined to start a war. Chamberlain is desperate to preserve the peace. 
 
They will meet in a city which forever afterwards will be notorious for what is about to take place. 
 
As Chamberlain's plane judders over the channel and the Fuhrer's train steams south, two young men travel with their leaders. Former friends from a more peaceful time, they are now on opposing sides. 
 
As Britain's darkest hour approaches, the fate of millions could depend on them - and the secrets they're hiding. 
 
Spying. Betrayal. Murder. Is any price too high for peace?

Munich

______________________________ 
'One of the great triumphs of contemporary historical literature.' The Times 
 
______________________________ 
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR 
 
'Laws are silent in times of war.' Cicero 
 
One of the great epics of political and historical fiction, The Cicero Trilogy charts the career of the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero from his mid-twenties as an ambitious young lawyer to his dramatic death more than thirty years later, pursued by an assassination squad on a cliff-top path. 
 
The extraordinary life that unfolds between these two episodes is recounted by Cicero's private secretary, Tiro: the law cases and the speeches that made his master's name; the elections and conspiracies he fought; the rivals who contended for power around him - Pompey, Crassus, Cato, Clodius, Catalina, and, most menacingly, Caesar; and, at the heart of it all, the complex personality of Cicero himself - brilliant, cunning, duplicitous, anxious, brave, and always intensely humane. 
 
More than ten years in the writing, and now published in a single volume for the first time, The Cicero Trilogy brings the world of the Roman republic vividly to life. Here is its grandeur, ambition and corruption; and here is its tumultuous collapse into dictatorship and anarchy - a story of the fragility of democratic institutions that holds a warning for our own time.

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?

Agrippa

Jeremy Paxman

A Higher Form of Killing was first published to great acclaim in 1982. The authors have written a new Introduction and a new Epilogue to take account of the events that have happened since the early 1980s - including the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the  black market that appeared in chemical and biological weapons, the acquisition of these weapons by various Third World states, the attempts of various countries like Iraq to build up arsenals of these weapons and, most recently, the use of these weapons in terrorist attacks. As the authors point out, the two generations since the Second World War lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Now a new generation must learn to live with weapons that are more insidious and potentially more devastating.

A Higher Form of Killing

George Orwell

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. 
 
The year is 1984, and life in Oceania is ruled by the Party. Under the gaze of Big Brother, Winston Smith yearns for intimacy and love - "thought crimes" that, if uncovered, would mean imprisonment, or death. But Winston is not alone in his defiance, and an illicit affair will draw him into the mysterious Brotherhood and the realities of resistance. 
 
Nineteen Eighty-Four has been described as chilling, absorbing, satirical, momentous, prophetic and terrifying. It is all these things, and more. 
 
The Authoritative Text. With an introduction by Robert Harris. 
 
*The jacket of this stunning hardback edition features period artwork by Elizabeth Friedlander, one of Europe's pre-eminent 20th-century graphic designers. Look out for complementary editions of Orwell's essential works Animal Farm and Down and Out in Paris and London.*

Nineteen Eighty-Four

A dystopian masterpiece - the powerful and prophetic novel that defined the twentieth century. 
 
The year is 1984. War and revolution have created an unrecognisable world. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, is ruled by the Party, led by Big Brother. Mass surveillance is total and The Thought Police ensure no individual thinking is allowed. 
 
Winston Smith works at The Ministry of Truth, carefully rewriting history. But Winston dreams of freedom, and of rebellion. It is here that he falls in love with Julia, and starts a secret, forbidden affair with her - but in this world nothing can be kept secret, and they are forced to face consequences more terrifying than either of them could have ever imagined. 
 
'A profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book' New Yorker 
 
'No novel of the past century has had more influence than George Orwell&rsquo;s 1984' Atlantic 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT HARRIS

1984

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First read: an exclusive extract from Robert Harris's Act of Oblivion

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What book to read, based on your favourite rom-com

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With the dawn of a new millennium about to break, the Nineties was a strange, floating decade of positivity, hope and something called the World Wide Web. 

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