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

The Burning Road:
AD265 - In the shadow of Mount Etna, slaves are rising up. As the rebel leader declares Sicily the new land of the free, men and women are slaughtered, and cities across the island are sacked and burned. When a ship is wrecked off the island's west coast, all but two survivors are cut down in the surf by the rebel slaves.

The Return:
145BC - CALABRIA, ANCIENT ROME. After many years of spilling blood for Rome, Gaius Furius Paullus has returned home to spend his remaining days working quietly on the family farm. But it seems death has followed Paullus from the battlefield. Just days after his arrival, bodies start appearing - murdered and mutilated.

The Lost Ten:
No man who enters the Castle of Silence ever walks out alive. A remote 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. Tasked with rescuing the young Prince Sasan, Valens leads a small, elite squad of soldiers across Mesopotamia and into the mountains south of the Caspian Sea.

The Last Hour:
A lone figure stands silhouetted atop the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Behind him, the sun is setting over the centre of the known world. Far below, the river is in full flood. The City of Rome lies spread out before him on the far bank. Footsteps pound up the stairs. He's been set up. An enemy is closing in; he is cornered. He jumps. Bruised and battered, he crawls out of the raging river.