Ancient Mystery Fiction

Caesar and Brutus. Marius and Sulla. Cicero, Antony, Clodius, and Augustus. The end of the Roman Republic gave us a host of larger-than-life characters hailing from Rome. Only one was named Great. In the year 90 B.C.E., chaos and unrest erupts across the Italian peninsula. Rome's allies have rebelled and taken up arms against the most powerful military on Earth. Leading Rome's legions - and his only son - to the city's defense, an unproven and unloved commander will taste victory and defeat outside the capital's gates.

Book number two of the award winning Brooke & Abby cozy mystery series, where clues from the past help solve modern murder cases. Why does Abby tarot card her way back to Ancient Rome when there’s no need to? After all, the recent death in town has been declared by the local pathologist to be simply an accidental, epileptic tragedy and nothing more. Or is it?

Craig Henriksen and Danny Walsh: two contemporary warriors in a struggle they barely understand. Despite the losses they've endured at his hands, they draw closer to the enemy and learn more about his nature and goals. Craig and Danny have become important targets.

This first book in the series "A Quest for Ancient Wisdom" also serves as a prequel to Rhuna's adventures. In the ancient, mystical past when an idyllic Atlantis-like civilization flourished, its people with exceptional powers could build giant stone structures like the Pyramids, and transform elements such as sand to stone and metal to gold with concentrated energy of the mind. This utopian Atlan Empire is rocked when one of its most preeminent Masters rebels and seeks to subvert the ideals of Atlan society. Roaming the countryside in a black robe, misusing his powers on innocent people, ...

When a group of young archaeologists stumbles upon mysterious inscriptions deep within an ancient ruin, they uncover a lost language that holds the key to a forgotten civilization. As they work to decipher cryptic symbols and hidden messages, they soon realize that their discovery is more than just history—it’s magic. With each new clue, they awaken long-dormant forces, face magical trials, and race against time to prevent an ancient power from falling into the wrong hands.

Ancient Thebes, 335 BC. Alexander savagely crushes the Theban revolt against his rule. Swearing revenge for their once glorious city, Dimitrios, a captain of the Theban army, physician Klemes, and soldier Ari join General Memnon in Asia Minor to fight against Alexander as he sets off to conquer the Persian Empire.

Europe, 998 AD. Galen and Alcuin have finally escaped the clutches of the Moors. Now they're adrift in an unsettled continent where invasions, cults, plagues, drought and the looming millennium have upset the world order. Do these two young monks have what it takes to fulfil Alcuin's promise to get to Rome? The journey over the Pyrenees and across the Mediterranean isn't even the greatest challenge. Galen needs to decide whether he's a saint. Can he find the answer amongst the people he meets or will he have to look deeper within himself to find the truth?

In AD 533, the last King of the Vandals still rules in northern Africa - but a prophecy reveals that his reign is doomed. Years before, sacred scrolls had been stolen from a high priestess, who cast a curse on the kingdom unless they were returned. The Vandal kingdom falls before the scrolls are ever found - leaving their location a mystery - and their discovery is the perfect challenge for Sam and Remi Fargo. However, before they can hunt for the scrolls, the Fargos must tend to problems within their charitable foundation.

Scottish noblemen with ties to the Knights Templar failed to find a trove of priceless icons hidden by the Knights of Rhodes. Centuries later, Katina Papamissios Bason makes discoveries of her own. With a lighthearted excitement, she discovers riddles left by the Scotsmen and a heartbreaking diary written during the blockade by Suleiman the Magnificent. These would give anyone what they needed to succeed. Almost.

Despite his situation, Paaten believes his future is not in the enemy land of Hatti. As Paaten struggles to find his way back to his homeland of Egypt, he finds himself in an unforeseen battle, waging the biggest war yet: that of his heart. Will Paaten's perceived enemy ensnare his love and loyalty, or will he return to Egypt to fulfill his destiny and oath to pharaoh?

Enga Dancing Flower knows her Neanderthal tribe is in trouble. The dark seasons are becoming longer, and the mammoth herds are fleeing south. When the tribal leader is found stabbed to death, the new leader thinks Enga did it. Expulsion and certain death loom. Enga must find the murderer to save her tribe - and herself.

After a career with a shadowy security firm with interests on both sides of the law, Dante has come home to put all that behind him and has gone to work for a private investigator. A call alerts him early one morning that Bill Owens, a fellow P.I., has been charged with a notorious 30-year-old killing. Bill was involved in a political group in the late 60s, which among other pranks and small-time crimes, held up a bank....

The St. Charles Players present multi-cast dramatizations of some of Edgar Allan Poe's greatest works, including The Black Cat, The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether, The Purloined Letter, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

Vita longs to write plays and poetry - but as a high-born girl in Roman Londinium, her fate is sealed: marriage and children. Then her father is murdered, her mother and brother disappear, and Vita flees from a shadowy enemy. Disguised as a slave at the gladiators' arena, she forges an unlikely bond with Brea, a native Briton gladiatrix - and her wolf. Together, they resolve to discover and bring the killer to justice before Vita's identity is revealed.

Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two students are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the 500-year-old Hypnerotomachia may finally reveal its secrets to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose future depends on it. As the deadline looms, research has stalled, until an ancient diary surfaces.

A legacy that sets her up for life from a relative she never knew existed…A secret that began at a boarding school and haunted someone who wanted revenge…An ancient circle of stones that unravels it all… On a cold March day, Ria Quinn, amateur archaeologist, arrives in Shokan Falls in upstate New York to claim an inheritance—but who was Aunt Harriet, her benefactor? No one she has ever heard of! Ria discovers there is a mysterious, prehistoric stone circle in the nearby woods that has an impossible connection to the girl’s boarding school her aunt attended thirty years before. ...

Historians Cameron Thorne and Amanda Spencer-Gunn discover a fourteenth-century journal which confirms a long-rumored historical heresy: The medieval Church outlawed the Knights Templar because the warrior monks were secretly worshiping the ancient Goddess. The journal also sucks Cam and Amanda into the orbit of a ruthless cabal of modern-day pagans intent on pushing America into the loving arms of the Goddess—whether America wants succor there or not.

Incomplete sections of the book of dead found in Ramesses’ tomb and the murder of a prominent tomb scribe sparks fears of the curse of Anubis in Deir el-Medina. While the lack of witnesses and a close-knit worker community hampers, Neti-Kerty and Shabaka’s investigation at a time when the whole of Thebes awaits the arrival of the pharaoh for the beautiful festival of the valley. When Neti starts to experience strange sensations and the pharaoh’s life is endangered it becomes evident that there is a larger, more sinister scheme to the events...

In a city where belief means everything, putting your faith in the wrong person can get you killed. Two Arkana agents are sent to Jerusalem on a standard artifact retrieval mission. What could possibly go wrong? Absolutely everything.

Sword dancer Li Feng is used to living life on the edge of the law - a woman alone in the dangerous world of the Tang Dynasty has only her whirlwind reflexes to trust. She will discover the truth about her past, even if that means outwitting the most feared thief-catcher of them all....