Parker's Folly

Twenty-one years ago, Tomas Parker saved the capital. The city has hated him for it ever since.

When an enemy army advanced on Auster, Parker-a young military engineer-brought down the King's Road beneath them. The plan worked. The city survived.

So did Parker's name.

The collapse killed a princess, her newborn child and dozens of others, and turned him into a national joke, a butcher and a warning told to children. Parker was quietly sent away to spend the next two decades maintaining roads and bridges in a forgotten corner of the kingdom.

Then the enemy comes back.

The dead princess's widower is at the head of the army. The king is dying. The capital's defences are built over foundations Parker knows cannot be trusted. And among the engineers preparing the city for siege is the adult son who has spent twenty-one years learning to live without him.

To save Auster again, Parker must uncover what really happened beneath the King's Road-and decide whether he has the right to make the same impossible choice twice.

A character-driven military fantasy of siege warfare, engineering, political intrigue, black humour and the terrible cost of being right.