After Hannibal

Golden Umbria is home to breathtaking scenery and great art; it is also whereHannibal and his invading band of Carthaginians ambushed and slaughtered aRoman legion, and where the local place-names still speak of that bloodshed.

Unsworth's contemporary invaders include the Greens, a retired American coupleseeking serenity among the Umbrian hills, who are bilked out of their savingsby the corrupt English "building expert" Stan Blemish; the Chapmans, a Britishproperty speculator and his wife, whose dispute with their neighbors over awall escalates into a feud of nearly medieval proportions; Anders Ritter, aGerman haunted by the part his father played in a mass killing of Italianhostages in Rome during the Second World War; and Fabio and Arturo, a gaycouple who, searching for peace and self-sufficiency, find treachery instead.And at the center of all these webs of deceit and greed is the cunning lawyerMancini, happy to aid the disputants--and to exploit to the fullest the faiththat these "innocents abroad" have placed in him.

Mining his genius for historical narrative as well as his gift for sharp-eyedportraiture and deliciously droll storytelling, Barry Unsworth has written amarvelous entertainment. "After Hannibal" is one of this remarkableauthor's finest creations.

Praise from England for "After Hannibal"

"Throughout "After Hannibal" you feel that here is a writer at the heightof his powers, equally at ease with thebig brush as with the small, takingconsiderable risks and pulling them off in a manner that's all the moreimpressive for being so unobtrusive."
-- "Sunday Telegraph"

"A skillfully composed and beautifully written novel."
-- "Times Literary Supplement"

"Few novelists now writing are anything like as reliably enjoyable as BarryUnsworth...There's very little the reviewer needs to say about his fiction, except: read it."
-- "The Spectator"