Robert Adam Books In Order

Publication Order of Charlemagne Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

(Written by Robert – thanks so much Robert!)

Robert Adam is a British author who has travelled and worked extensively throughout Europe. He started writing the first incarnation of “At the Court of Charlemagne” at the time of the Brexit referendum with the aim of bringing alive the early history of the EEC. The intital 20,000-word novella was later reworked into a full-length novel over the course of 2018, followed by a short satire of the European Union’s history from its origins in 1952 up until 2009, written in the style of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Fictional and real historical characters in the Charlemagne series are woven together in the first-person style of Philip Kerr & Raymond Chandler with plots based on real-life, lesser-known events such as the Luxembourg Compromise, the Dublin Arms Crisis, and the Borghese Coup in Italy. Research for each book generally takes around six months with writing and proofing between six and twelve, depending on the complexity of the themes being explored.

Over the arc of the books the main protagonist (an EEC employee) is on journey of discovery from unthinking acceptance to cynical ambivalence towards the organisation & its aims. Underlying this is a personal journey of discovery as he becomes aware of and is eventually reconciled with his own family origins in the dark days of Germany’s past.

Book #1: At the Court of Charlemagne

Publication year: 2019

March-April 1969: “At the Court of Charlemagne” introduces the main protagonist of the Charlemagne series, Oskar Lenkeit, a junior employee of EEC Internal Affairs who is plucked from anonymity to play a role created for him by the big beasts in the Berlaymont jungle. On one side stand those who plan to concentrate all the EEC’s powers under the Commission in Brussels, on the other, those who believe the EEC should be organised as a cooperative venture between nation-states. Lenkeit needs to use all his ingenuity and initiative to avoid being caught between the two camps.

Book #2: On the Green Hill of Tara

Publication year: 2020

July-August 1970: Lenkeit is sent to Ireland to get the inside story on why the Irish Government firstly tried to smuggle arms to the IRA and then why it backtracked and put their own agents on trial. In Dublin, he goes fishing for a meeting with the real insiders, little realising the dangers lurking beneath the surface of the political water. Based on the real world “Arms Crisis”.

Book #3: Under the Golden Sicilian Sun

Publication year: 2021

September-December 1970: The female of the species is more deadly than the male, or so the poem goes. Through the machinations of the woman he’s always wanted, Lenkeit ends up in Italy in some very hot water indeed as he’s drawn into a right-wing coup plot to topple the Italian government. Based on the real world “Golpe Borghese” (“Borghese Coup”).

Book #4: A Special Kind of Treachery

Publication year: 2022

March-June 1971: Set in the UK around the May 1971 summit between the French president, Georges Pompidou and the British Prime Minister, Edward Heath. The book explores the character of Heath as Lenkeit rubs up against the people around the Conservative Party leader and tries to discern Heath’s personal and professional motivations. It’s a detective story, but the real puzzle being solved why the conservative establishment abandoned the notion of national independence by wanting to join the EEC in the first place.

Standalone book: Animal Co-operative

Publication year: 2019

Satire written in the allegorical style of Animal Farm, picking up the story of the EU and its predecessor organisations starting in the immediate post-war period. The context of the narrative has been transposed from 1930’s England to 1890’s Russia, but the pigs are still in charge (at least in the Soviet lands).