It doesn't take him long to master the art of deceit himself; his journey from renegade citizen to a powerful public figure is testimony to his skills. And from the exhilarating chariot race in Olympia to Alexander's encounter with the Persian army on the banks of the Granicus, his story rivets you from beginning to end. Written with enormous gusto, and with a scholarship lightly worn, The Emissary is a truly wonderful patchwork of intrigue, betrayal, violence and military skullduggery in a distant world, epic in proportion and quite unputdownable.