I assumed that a book with the title Olympia: The Birth of the Games would be another of those volumes targeted primarily at students of, say, GCSE Classical Civilisation. But, no: it is a novel. Written by two academics (they like their frontal adverbial clauses!), it tells the story of the young peace-loving priest Pelops who witnesses the vividly-described horrors of war between rival Greek cities, gets involved in machinations between Sparta and Carthage, pursues and rescues his kidnapped girlfriend Hippodamia, recovers from being poisoned by his father and in the end triumphs in the horse race at the first Olympiad. Quite a set of experiences!

The authors' interests certainly contribute to the more belligerent aspects of the narrative. (inter alia Michael O'Kane is ‘a keen student of the art of boxing’ and John Martino is a disabled veteran of the Australian Defence Force who wrote his PhD on martial violence. He is also ‘an avid archer’ and an ‘Alfa Romeo enthusiast’. The latter was probably of minimal assistance in writing this book!)

In the course of the story, we meet some well-known characters from the ancient world. Queen Dido is on the throne of Carthage, Homer pops up from time to time, Tantalus is Pelops' father and the chief priest of Olympia, Menander is a Spartan spy, Lycurgus is the son of a Spartan king, and Rameses (who sadly becomes Ramses at one point) is an Egyptian prince. Saul and Goliath have minor roles to play. Ares (when not being Aries) rules the early chapters.

The narrative is vivid and strong (quite gory in places) but sometimes the language seems rather stilted and the dialogue unrealistic. The authors are very determined that people should not just speak: in the course of a typical couple of pages we find ‘cried’, ‘shouted’, ‘asked’, ‘snarled’, ‘added’, ‘declared’, ‘exploded’, ‘snorted’, ‘announced’, ‘stammered’ and ‘barked’.

There is a preface by the President of the Olympism for Humanity Alliance who sees this book as ‘a source of inspiration and a platform for the imagination, hope and global action’. We'll see!