Nick Brown is one of my favourite contemporary writers of historical fiction, bringing some much needed intelligence and character insight to its Roman Empire sub-genre with his Agent of Rome series. Now, with Marik’s Way, Brown tries his hand at fantasy and he proves as adept and engaging a writer in this field as he is with historical fiction. Admittedly, the world building does not stray that far from the tropes of historical fiction, being a largely medieval creation, but it’s sketched in well enough to make a convincing setting for the story’s main focus, Marik himself, which allows Brown’s greatest talent, the creation of interesting, engaging protagonists, to come to the fore.

With Marik, Brown has written a worthy companion to Cassius Corbulo, the Agent of Rome. Like Corbulo, Marik is a man who relies on his intelligence to get him out of bad situations (although if it does come down to fighting, he’s far better at it than Corbulo without becoming the sort of ridiculous invincible warrior that disfigures so much historical fiction), with a proper moral code and sufficient motivation, by way of shame and guilt, to keep driving him on to fresh adventures. I, for one, hope that Nick Brown will write further adventures for Marik and reveal some more about the world he has begun sketching out. Highly recommended.