'Caesar's General' by Alex Gough provides a compelling look into one of the leading figures of the Roman republic's last gasp. It follows Mark Antony from the conclusion of Caesar's Gallic wars to his discovery of Caesar's assassination. The book, as a result, gallops along at a fast and exciting pace.
I really enjoyed the window into Antony's more private moments - his relationships with his daughter, his wives, and his mistress. His friendships with Curio and Trebonius, his rivalry with Dolabella, and his antagonism towards Cicero were highly enjoyable. I love these character moments and these really made the historical Mark Antony come alive. His relationship with Julius Caesar was the most developed of these, and its closeness and complexity were really well written.
The wide expanse of time the book covers necessitates that some events in the timeline get no more than a passing mention, and some are omitted altogether. While I appreciate seeing these events from Antony's perspective, some of the paragraphs exhaustively detailing events he was not present for as background for a letter or a discussion derailed the pace slightly. However, this didn't happen often enough to disrupt my enjoyment of the book.
The book is incredibly well-researched and well-written. It not only makes for a compelling story, but it also provides an interesting jumping-off point for further researching the characters and events in the book. The research has been well compiled from existing theories and evidence, with necessary liberties taken to create more a more engaging plot, and the facts are incorporated very naturally into the storytelling. This is everything you could want in a piece of historical fiction.
The final scenes hold all the drama I was hoping for, and I am very much looking forward to the next book in the series!