Back Trouble

by Matt Kinnaird

  There’s nothing to do but wait for the knock on the door.

  I could commit suicide before they get here. I don’t fancy prison.

  But you try killing yourself with a bad back.

  The End

  Also By This Author:

  SON OF ROME

  By Matt Kinnaird

  “I am not a great man, but I have met great men. The emperor Nero himself once punched me in the face.”

  In ancient Rome, it’s tough being poor, but Sextus Fidelius is just that. He has neither money nor prospects but he does have an ambition: to buy freedom for the love of his life, the slave-girl Rufilla. But how will he find the money?

  Perhaps his mysterious teacher, Hippias, can help him; perhaps his dead father’s rich patron will show him the way. Perhaps he can live as an outlaw, join the army, even become a gladiator.

  But first he has to flee the city; to survive in a treacherous, hazardous world; to avoid all manner of temptation; and perhaps he will also discover the shocking secret of his birth.

  SON OF SPARTA

  By Matt Kinnaird

  As a Spartan youth, Leon wants nothing more than to succeed. He wants to compete, beat his rivals and qualify for the mysterious Crypteia; he wants to be an Equal and be in the 300; he wants to fight for Sparta.

  But Leon meets a girl, a Helot slave, and through her he discovers the brutality of the Spartan way for those who refuse to follow it. And he becomes caught up in something greater, the war between his homeland and the democratic city of Athens – and a quest for a talisman sought by both sides: the so-called thighbone of legendary Theseus.

  Then Leon must make a decision: which side, if any, is he on?

  DEAD ROME

  By Matt Kinnaird

  Zombies in Ancient Rome?

  It's 81AD and the day of the Colosseum's inaugural games.

  But it seems Hades may at last be full.

  Dead gladiators come back to life, hungry for the flesh of the living, and then the curse breaks out across the city. A disparate band of survivors - from paupers, slaves and soldiers to royalty - gather on to the Palatine Hill, seat of Emperor Titus and his unstable brother Domitian.

  Together, they must somehow find a way to escape Dead Rome.