Massie, Allan

(British, 1938– )

Born in Singapore and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Massie was a schoolteacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1976. Begin with The Death of Men (1981), a sophisticated treatment of political ethics with the pace of a good thriller. Based on the kidnapping of Aldo Moro in Italy in 1978, it concerns a fundamentally decent politician abandoned to terrorists by an unscrupulous government. In One Night in Winter (1984) an antiques dealer confronts his past involvement in extreme Scottish nationalism as he plunges into a disastrous love-affair. Massie's historical novels set in ancient Rome include Tiberius: The Memoirs of the Emperor (1991), in which the aged emperor reviews his past with weary honesty. Caesar (1993) is narrated by Brutus, who vividly recounts their former comradeship-in-arms and explains his betrayal of Caesar.

Frederic Raphael, Robert Graves. See HISTORICAL  DH