Cutter's Island

Most of us are familiar with the Caesar of Shakespeare and Shaw. We know him primarily as the manipulative warlord and statesman. But what about the Caesar of Plutarch and Suetonius - historians who dealt with Caesar as a young man? Here, in this stunning novel, written with all the excitement and eloquence of an epic poem, we find Caesar at the age of twenty-five captured by pirates as he sails to the Island of Rhodes to study rhetoric with the renowned Apollonias Moon. In an odd sort of way, Caesar finds, in the encounter with Cutter - the clever, bloodthirsty pirate and his band of assassins - a new strength of purpose, an unexpected vehicle for him to hone his tactical skills, something he must develop if he is to equal or surpass his contemporaries. After all, weren't Crassus and Pompey the Great already famous generals in their twenties? In eloquent and burnished prose, Vincent Panella has Caesar tell the story of his kidnapping and ransom and his solemn vow to avenge his forty days of captivity. It is a time when Caesar's self-doubt is at a peak: 'I don't know where I fit - am I really a man of dreams? Am I as strong as Sertorius...as brave a Pompey?' It is in Caesar's final encounter with the wily pirate and his men that he is challenged to become himself at last.