The Byzantine Cipher: The First Novel in The Emperor's Man Mysteries

by T.C. Kuhn

The year is 949 and the troubled Byzantine Empire has just enthroned a new emperor, Constantine VII. The man who will come to be known as The Scholar Emperor must restore the past glories of both his family and the vast empire he inherits from a usurper, which has fallen into disarray. A small group of dedicated men work in the shadows to protect both the emperor and the empire, which is beset on all sides by both new threats and old enemies who see the failure of Constantine as their best path to resuming a lost power.
Peter Menzies in his secret role as the mysterious John Daedalus has been recruited by these men who protect the emperor to serve as their information gatherer, agent provocateur, and dirty jobs specialist in that troubled empire, both within the great city of Constantinople and to the far reaches of the Mediterranean. In his dual life Peter must constantly try to reconcile the dangerous life of John Daedalus with the desires of the important Julianus family and the young woman Irene, who are trying to draw him into their more sedate and safe life as part of the upper class of the great Byzantine world and a culture which will exist for a thousand years.

270 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 27, 2022

About the author

The author of The People of the Stone series brings to the subject of Prehistoric Native America a unique perspective based upon more than thirty years of direct involvement in the area of Native American studies gained from several points of view and experiences. As a professional archaeologist he has worked both in the Southwest, where he attended graduate school at Eastern New Mexico University, and in the Ohio Valley (the primary location for the novels) where he is originally from and where he worked for many years, while also teaching and studying at Marshall University.