The Byzantine Cipher: Historical Thriller

By Adrian Corso

Constantinople, 968 AD. The greatest city on earth. The most dangerous place a German spy has ever set foot.

Lukas Von Mainz crossed the Alps with a bishop's embassy and a single mission: steal the secret of Greek Fire before war between the empires consumes a generation.

The weapon burns on water. The Byzantines guard its formula like the relic of a saint. And every man Lukas needs to reach it, a dying eunuch in the naval ministry, a Norse mercenary who wants to die at home, an empress who plans to bury her husband, comes with a price he is not certain he can pay.

Inside the embassy, a young priest with earnest eyes is leaking everything to a confessor who answers to a German duke who wants the mission to fail. Outside the embassy, the parakoimomenos watches with hands folded and gives nothing away. And in the south gallery of the Hagia Sophia, behind a screen of latticed marble, the Empress Theophano studies the foreign translator who lies in Greek and offers him terms no honest man should accept.

Forty days. One throne room. Five hundred years of imperial protocol stacked against him.

To bring the secret home, Lukas will have to murder an innocent man with his own hands.

A historical thriller from Adrian Corso, author of The Wolves of Rome.

If you devour Robert Harris, C. J. Sansom, Daniel Silva, or Steve Berry, The Byzantine Cipher belongs on your shelf. Set in the real Constantinople of Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, the warrior-emperor called the Pale Death of the Saracens, and Empress Theophano, the woman who would unmake him, this is a thriller of corridors, codes, confessions, and the cost of serving an empire that never warms anyone who stands near its fire.

Praise for the Lukas Von Mainz Thrillers:
"A literary historical thriller in the vein of Mantel and Harris. Corso has a Sansom-level command of period and a Brown-level command of pace."

What readers should know:
The Lukas Von Mainz Thrillers are standalone novels. The Byzantine Cipher can be read first, alongside, or after The Wolves of Rome. New readers welcome.

The series so far:
Book 1: The Wolves of Rome
Book 2: The Byzantine Cipher
Book 3: The Library of C rdoba (forthcoming)
Book 4: The Iron Frontier (forthcoming)

Buy now and step into the Queen of Cities.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GPQQX92N
• ISBN13: 9798249486198
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"