As Midsummer selection of the Book of the Month, this starts with a ready market. A superb sense of story is sustained throughout against the vivid tapestry of the past. The love story with Ariadne becomes less bitter gall- its tragic ending more understandable. Even the characters of the chosen group come clear as individuals, while Theseus teaches them to stake their lives on group loyalty. The archaeological findings in the Knossos' excavations, which provide historical authenticity to the story, help give credence to the reconstruction of the vast palace, the labyrinth beneath it, the bull ring where the doomed young people played out their dance with death. It has all the magic of the earlier book, and the subject- the imperishable story of Theseus, prince of Athens, and the Minotaur of Crete to which 14 Athenian boys and girls were yearly sacrificed, has a timeless quality of poignant drama which is heightened in her retelling. This book will, I feel, win as well the plaudits of the general public. Theseus, the boy-king of Eleuisis, is ritually preordained to die after one year of marriage to the sacred Queen, but he defies the Gods decree and claims.

The first, The Last of the Wine (1956) won wide critical acclaim. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.The ancient world of myth and legend takes on the trappings of living history in this second of Mary Renault's imaginative reconstructions. Renault's story of Theseus continues with the sequel The Bull from the Sea. Richly imbued with the spirit of its time, this is a page-turner as well as a daring act of imagination. The story follows Theseus's adventures from Troizen to Eleusis, where the death in the book's title is to take place, and from Athens to Crete, where he learns to jump bulls and is named king of the victims. Drawing on modern scholarship and archaeological findings at Knossos, Mary Renault's Theseus is an utterly lifelike figure-a king of immense charisma, whose boundless strivings flow from strength and weakness-but also one steered by implacable prophecy. What the founder-hero might have been in real life is another question, brilliantly explored in The King Must Die. In myth, Theseus was the slayer of the child-devouring Minotaur in Crete.

New York Times Bestseller: This retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus, king of Athens, is 'one of the truly fine historical novels of modern times' ( The New York Times).

The king must die book