The Eagle Has Fallen

[Nathan Ross]

Rosemary Sutcliff... You rooted for the main character, that person was "alive" in your mind

Actually I think Sutcliff's characterisation was the weakest aspect of the 'eagle' novels - her repeated Marcus Aquilas always seemed a bit bland to me and lacked depth. Alcibiades in her 'grown up' novel The Flowers of Adonis was much darker and more complex, so it was probably just a product of the intended readership.

Sutcliff was great at plot, pace and description - 'eagle of the ninth' etc have a really vivid sense of place and atmosphere. Some of the landscapes in Frontier Wolf (another 'Aquila' book) are really quite lyrical. By contrast, the protagonists often seem like cyphers for the author's (or reader's) point of view. It's the quality of the writing and the storytelling that makes these books classics.