The Veiled Assassin, a Novel of the Late Roman Empire - The Embers of Empire, #1

"The Veiled Assassin" is the first in Q. V. Hunter's ground-breaking series, 'The Embers of Empire, ' introducing Roman fiction fans to a little-used setting when the Republic and Imperium periods had become fading memories. The Dominate period ruled by Emperors Constans, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate, and the Valentinian brothers was a world of usurping barbarian generals, competing Christian factions, intrigant eunuchs, overstretched borders, and the rise of the rival 'New Roma' or Constantinople in the East.
In this first adventure, "The Veiled Assassin" pits young Marcus Gregorianus Numidianus, half-African slave-turned-spy, against religious suicide martyrs destroying the stability of Roman African colonial exports vital to a hungry empire. Even if Marcus' mission to find the powerful mastermind behind the mutilating ambushes is a success, will his army master honor an obligation to free the stubborn young hero?Marcus will survive to face Gallo-Roman army rebels, corrupt imperial eunuchs ruling the East, and a pair of Christian emperors struggling to maintain order in the face of Goths, Alemanni, Saxons, Berbers, Persians, and Franks-all amidst embers of a world blindly smoldering toward its extinction.
Migrant surges, religious suicide martyrs, imperialist commodity extraction, spiritual faddism, gender battles, child sex abuse, people-trafficking-even a forerunner of Brexit-the men and women of the 4th century faced all of it already, and they're all in "The Embers of Empire" series, delighting fans of Bernard Cornwell, Steven Saylor, and Robert Harris.