SHELF LIFE
Simon Scarrow, the No 1 bestselling thriller author, rounds up the five reads that most gripped his imagination
Simon Scarrow
The Eagle of the Ninth
by Rosemary Sutcliff
‘I came across this when I was ten years old. A set of the books was gathering dust in the class-room cupboard and my teacher recommended it to me. The book had a battered blue cloth cover and the names of a dozen or so pupils who had been issued the book before me so it already felt like a piece of history. I was immediately gripped by Sutcliff ’s novel about a young Roman officer serving in ancient Britain. Having only recently come to live in Britain I knew how it felt to be something of an outsider, just like the three main characters, not to mention “Cub”. Much as I enjoyed the book the first time round it was not until I read it to my sons, many years later, that I grasped just how fine a writer Sutcliff was. Her depiction of a chariot ride in the honeyed light of a late summer afternoon transports the reader to the moment in a way that few authors achieve.’