Although very little is known for certain about Pontius Pilate, the man who crucified Christ, this has not stopped writers in every age from imagining his life. In this extraordinary book, Ann Wroe recounts the lives of all our Pilates; among them the glittering medieval tyrant, devoted to gambling and getting around the law, and the wriggling modern pragmatist, whose dilemma over Jesus has been described by Tony Blair as 'a timeless parable of political life'. This is also the story of the man Pilate might have been; and the man who mirrors us. Ann Wroe shows how, in his struggles with fate and free will, Pilate's story has also become the story of ourselves. ---'The sheer skill of the writing-the touch of a master novelist-Few have ever explored so imaginatively, or with such passionate attention to detail' Sunday Telegraph--'Extraordinary and compelling' Victoria Glendinning, Daily Telegraph --'She manages always to keep Pilate living and breathing in the text, and occasionally kicking and screaming' Independent on Sunday--'Wroe is a creative, even a beautiful writer-It is a wonderfully enjoyable, rich, generous book' A. N. Wilson, Daily Mail--'Because so little s known, it is possible to speculate endlessly. If one's mind is a brilliant engine of speculation like Wroe's, then one is dazzlingly equipped to do so. Her book is excellent and discloses an intense imaginative sympathy, a lyricism, and a fine-tuned psychological perception' Daily Express