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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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

'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

'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

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Life according to Robert Harris

Robert Harris speaking in the Penguin Podcast studio

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The Penguin Podcast: episode 6 - books to screen with Robert Harris

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Where to start with Robert Harris

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My Policeman: The unlikely literary inspiration behind the new Harry Styles film

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

Book to movie adaptations of 2025, including The Thursday Murder Club, The Salt Path, You and Me on Vacation and Frankenstein.

Film and TV adaptations we're excited about in 2025

The stories behind the notebooks that documented Rob MacFarlane's travels underground

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

The Daily Mail and Penguin Random House launch crime-writing competition  

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Rob Waddington is appointed Group Sales Director at Penguin Random House UK

How Thomas Harris defined a genre and created fiction’s most likeable villain

Where to start reading Jo Nesbo

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The book lover's guide to Edinburgh

9 beach reads set in Italy

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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