An old grudge erupts into violence as Odd Tangle-Hair refuses to back down from the men he believes shamed his father and betrayed their heritage by turning away from the old gods in favor of the White Christ. But when the violence escalates and Odd's family bears the brunt of it, he must leave his beloved Iceland behind and find his own way in the world. The golden age of Viking conquest is fading when he takes to the seas with his rag-tag crew, but they will voyage to primitive Lapland, ...

In this second volume of his saga, Odd Tangle-Hair travels to Russia to take up his post as skald to Harald, the young renegade prince of Norway. Intrigue and danger await him when Odd finds himself 'caught between two wolves'—the arrogant, bullying Harald and his sworn enemy, Ingigerd, Grand Princess of Novgorod, who schemes against Harald by seducing Odd. While political intrigue swirls around him, a Pecheneg horde explodes across the steppe, and Odd must use his wits to rescue the besie...

THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 109 ADThe frontier province of Bithynia is a cesspit of sedition, rotten with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome. When a rich Roman official is found dead on a desolate hillside; two riderless horses tethered in a nearby wood, it is assumed he was killed as a protest against Emperor Trajan's unlimited power.But Pliny the Younger, newly appointed Governor of Bithynia, is not so sure.Who was the other rider? What were the two of them doing i...

A crime novel set in Ancient Rome. A city under the thrall of a tyrant, where deceit and death walk hand-in-hand.DECEIT, TYRANNY, DEATH.Games the Romans play best.Sextus Ingentius Verpa, imperial senator, notorious informer and scheming minion of the despotic Emperor Domitian, has been butchered in the night.The Emperor has decreed that punishment will be swift and has commissioned Gaius Plinius Secundus – better known as Pliny the Younger – to investigate. P...

The Varangian is the final entry in Bruce Macbain's Odd Tangle-Hair Saga and brings Odd's challenging adventures to a climactic and satisfying finish. On a secret diplomatic mission to the Emperor's court in Miklagard, the Viking's name for Constantinople, Odd meets the members of the fearsome Varangian Guard whose elite Viking members served as the Emperor's personal bodyguards. Harald, his former master and the man he's been sent to murder, now serves among the guards. Court int...

Here are three great historical crime novels in one volume.ROMAN GAMES: Rome, AD 95 – a city under the thrall of a tyrant. It is up to Gaius Plinius Secundus – better known to posterity as Pliny the Younger – to investigate the murder of one of emperor's favourites. He has just 15 days to solve the case, 15 days that will threaten Pliny's conscience, his life and the stability of Rome itself.ONE FOR SORROW: Amid the splendour and the squalor of sixth-century Byzantium. A tr...

Sometimes murder is only a distraction from the real betrayal.Pliny, a respectable young senator and lawyer, is the newly appointed governor of Bithynia, a turbulent frontier province rotting with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome. When a high Roman official is found murdered on a desolate hillside miles from the capital, Pliny must untangle numerous threads in the investigation, including a barbarian god whose devotees may include a murderer, a clever and unscrupulous fa...

Rome, September AD 96. When the body of Sextus Verpa, a notorious senatorial informer and libertine, is found stabbed to death in his bedroom, his slaves are suspected. Pliny, a very respectable young senator and lawyer, is ordered by the emperor Domitian to investigate. However, the Ludi Romani, “the Roman Games,” have just begun, and for the next fifteen days the law courts are in recess. If Pliny can’t identify the murderer in that time, Verpa’s entire slave household will be b...