I read James Duffy's first Gladiators of the Empire Novel, "Sand of the Arena", shortly after I returned from a visit to Italy with my wife this past summer. The story was fun and the characters were interesting. And Duffy's writing was clear, concise and terrifically descriptive. The surest sign that I enjoyed reading the book was when I found myself one Sunday morning, hiding in my office from my kids and wife so I could finish the final 50 pages.

Sure enough, I found myself sitting in my living room this past Saturday morning trying to burn through the last chapters of Duffy's sequel to "Sands" - "The Fight for Rome" - before the family descended upon me looking to launch into our days' activities.

"Fight" brings back all relevant characters from the first book: Quintus and his arena alter-ego Taurus, Lindani the venatore, Amazonia the gladiatrix, and the primary antagonists Lucius and Julia. Added to the mix, however, are Vespasian and a smattering of other key players (fictional and real) from the famed Year of the Four Emperors.

I think the smartest move on Duffy's part was to move Quintus and his friends out of the arena (although not exclusively as there are three or four well-written arena battles) and into a war scenario. I'm a big fan of historical fiction that works hard on the HISTORICAL part of the book and Duffy did just that. Duffy includes some historical notes as part of his afterward and is pretty clear on what's real and what's not. While I forgive Duffy' periodically hokey plot points, I think he did a terrific job working his fictional gladiators into historically true situations.

Make no mistake, neither of Duffy's books are particularly deep or strongly emotive. But they're extremely well written and he has a very strong flair for a fast-paced narrative. I'd put his stories up against Simon Scarrow's first two "Eagle" novels and I think in a blind "read-test" Duffy would come out even for pure action and adventure.

Duffy doesn't hold back on gritty exposition. He includes a couple of pretty intense sex scenes and a rather surprisingly brutal rape towards the end. The battle scenes are fun to read and good and gory.

If you can stomach the "realism", I'd highly recommend this book and it's ( )