James Leslie-Melville

Argentum

3,000 BCE, east Mediterranean. A slave digs a silver nugget out of the ground at an Anatolian mine, launching it on a journey through the ages to the present day. Crisscrossing the globe, travelling into space and plunging to the seabed, it features in a series of world-changing historical events.

 Over fifteen chapters it falls into the hands of Alexander the Great, Judas Iscariot, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Ferdinand Magellan, Marie Antoinette, Adolf Hitler and many more. As such, it witnesses human endeavour in all its moods, from exploration to invention, from creation to devastation, from triumph to despair.

Argentum is a light-hearted canter through the last 5,000 years, combining the adventures of the silver piece with some of the key characters and moments in world history, and revealing along the way the extraordinary adaptability of element 47.

So where is it now?

James Leslie-Melville runs his own business providing advisory services to small companies, after a thirty-year career in banking/industry and a Cambridge University law degree. He has a keen interest in the sweep of history through the ages, and the lesser-known stories of the central characters that have helped to shape it. Married with three adult children, he lives in Fife, Scotland. Argentum is his debut novel.