A BESTSELLING writer whose latest novel is set in Roman Colchester will visit the city next month as he talks readers through his latest work.

Simon Scarrow, 60, manages to write about three novels each year, and his latest book, Death to the Emperor, is set in Colchester in the first century AD as the Romans’ grip on Britannia – and Camulodunum – starts to weaken.

Colchester is not necessarily untrodden ground for Mr Scarrow, who has researched the Roman city extensively before in preparation for one of his previous books, The Honour of Rome.

His links to the city are in fact quite strong – Colchester was the site of numerous field trips which piqued his interest in the ancient civilization as a pupil, and Mr Scarrow’s son, Joe, who is in the Paras, is stationed here.

It means the Norfolk-born former teacher – who was once invited to meet the Jordonian royal family because of King Abdullah II’s fascination with books – has found himself in the Roman Empire’s only British city to have a chariot-racing circus before.

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“When I was doing my history A level, there was a Roman Britain option – that involved three to four field trips to Colchester.

“We looked at the remains of the temple, so we had a pretty good idea of what the Roman Empire in Colchester looked like."

And although Mr Scarrow is something of a Roman fanatic – he is full of praise for the educational benefits to be had from the 2005 computer game, Rome Total War – he says those without extensive Roman knowledge could easily follow the plotline.

“A lot of people know more than they think [about the Romans].

“If you go to Colchester Museum, it’s Roman heavy; in Norfolk, there are Roman remains, and in the north there’s Hadrian’s Wall and in the Lake District you’ve got Hardknott Fort.

“You bump into the Romans a lot more often than you think.”

Mr Scarrow will be speaking at Colchester’s branch of Waterstone’s on Wednesday, November 22, at 7pm.

Tickets, which cost £5, are available online from waterstones.com/events/Colchester.