The Forgotten Legion marches again. On an epic scale, Ben Kane vividly captures the heat and the dust, and the despair of the survivors of a defeated Roman army now forced to fight for their savage captors in the barbarous lands of the east. Three men with nothing left to live for but each other and the memories of a life they fear they will never return to. Tarquinius, Romulus and Brennus battle for their very existence in the face of impossible odds while, back in Rome, Romulus's sister Fabiola is threatened by the same political forces that threaten to destroy the Republic. The Silver Eagle is an utterly engrossing combination of historical fact and believable fiction that draws the reader in and holds his interest to the last page.

Does suspense exceptionally well, and it's a book that won't leave your fingernails intact...a terrifically exciting and thought-provoking must-read

This perfectly constructed drama explores the moralities around unconditional love and self-preservation. And it also weaves an intricate story of redemption starting in the trenches at Passchendaele and continuing till Britain's current terror threat...storytelling at its best.

A fine novel; strange and unforgettable.

Ignites with an energy that should ensure short-listing in the next Man Booker Prize....Farndale's evocation of trench warfare surpasses Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong...Of the book's many accomplishments perhaps the strongest is the writing itself. Exquisite and luminous...Farndale gives a master class in the power of literature to illuminate the physical world and the human soul.

Love, cowardice and redemption are the themes that stalk Farndale's beautifully intelligent tale.

Profound, moving and compelling. A beautifully composed novel.

A beguiling and resonant novel of ideas. The action is vivid and absorbing...although this intergenerational family drama is plotted like a thriller, it's also a novel of ideas, throwing light on the strange dance between religion and science.

Beautiful...Farndale's elegant prose, his storytelling ability and the wise tolerance with which he views...his characters lend his exhilarating novel a tenderly redemptive afterimage.

It makes exhilarating reading, all the better for its satirical edge.

Love, terrorism, plane crashes, Passchendaele, religious visions... The highest compliment one can pay Farndale... is that the material is so well marshalled that the narrative unfurls without strain....beautifully done.

Philosophically ambitious and deftly crafted, Nigel Farndale's novel has one leg planted in the trenches of the First World War and the other placed sure-footedly in the present...perspicacious observations of human behaviour... beautiful.

A constantly engaging and witty novel from a tremendously clever writer.

Plausiby drawn....strong central characters, interesting subplots and well-sketched minor characters.

As idiosyncratic as it is ambitious...given shape and purpose by a true literary craftsman. The book both keeps you reading and makes you think.

I drank in Nigel Farndale's The Blasphemer in huge lungfuls, and mourned it when it was finished. For anyone who loved Saturday, Atonement or Birdsong, this is the generational novel at its best.