Splintered Icon - Softcover

Napier, Bill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312936680 ISBN 13: 9780312936686

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2005

Synopsis

As an antique map dealer in a small English town, Harry Blake appreciates the quiet life. But when a local landowner asks him to value a 400-year-old journal and is then brutally murdered twelve hours later, Harry begins to suspect he's being pulled into something sinister. What does the dusty journal contain that is a matter of life and death? Why is someone prepared to pay Harry a fortune for it? He turns to marine historian Zola Kahn to uncover the mysteries. And when they meet at the old Greenwich Observatory, Harry is convinced there is more to Zola than meets the eye. The trail of the journal leads him into a world of deadly Elizabethan conspiracies, with a thread of history that takes him through a thousand years of religious intrigue back to the blood-soaked Crusades and a long lost icon whose rediscovery has the potential to ignite a worldwide religious war. Combining the thrill of a contemporary chase novel with a historical puzzle this is one novel that will leave readers gasping for breath.

About this title

About the Author

PROFESSOR BILL NAPIER is a career scientist, trained in Scotland, with a specialty in astronomy. He has long been fascinated by rumors of a 16th Century conspiracy to mix astronomy, history, and religion in a plot that would have changed the world forever. The mysterious icon at the center of Splintered Icon the key to that conspiracy, inspired in part by John Dee, the Queen's astronomer. Dee was also a shadowy spy operating under the code name 007. Bill Napier lives in Ireland with his wife.

From the Back Cover

One of the most captivating books you will ever read, Bill Napier's debut novel Splintered Icon will shatter your illusions with its high stakes plot, fascinating characters, and unrelenting suspense...

ITS HISTORY IS UNTOLD.
Antiquarian bookseller Harry Blake is hired to appraise a four-hundred-year-old journal bequeathed to a wealthy landowner. At first, it appears to be only the curiously coded diary of a young cabin boy aboard Sir Walter Raleigh's celebrated 1585 Elizabethan expedition. But when Harry's client is murdered and his own life is threatened, he realizes that he's opened
the door to a mystery worth killing for...

ITS MYSTERIES ARE INCREDIBLE.
Enlisting the aide of eminent map dealer Zola Kahn, Harry uncovers something else. Buried in the cryptic writings are puzzling references to a "secret purpose", terrified revelations of murder at sea, and an astonishing disclosure: the location of an invaluable holy relic thought lost for more than a thousand years.

ITS REVELATIONS ARE LIFE AND DEATH.
Harry and Zola follow a trail that leads them to an ancient and dangerous secret conspiracy still unraveling after centuries, and possessing the unimaginable power to literally change history-and splinter it forever.

Visit www.splinteredicon.com

Reviews

In this suspenseful Da Vinci Code knockoff from British author Napier (Nemesis), Harry Blake, an antiquarian book dealer specializing in old maps and manuscripts, agrees to help Sir Toby Tebbit translate a 400-year-old journal, written in code, that Sir Toby has inherited from a heretofore unknown relative in Jamaica. The manuscript chronicles the adventures of a young cabin boy, James Ogilvie, who traveled to the Americas as part of a secret mission for the Elizabethan crown. When a mysterious woman approaches Blake about buying the journal, he refuses to sell. Later, Blake returns to the Tebbit household to discover that Sir Toby has been brutally murdered. Teaming up with rival historian Zola Kahn and Sir Toby's daughter, Debbie, the trio soon join a race to determine the meaning behind Ogilvie's encrypted text. A trail reaching as far back as the Crusades leads toward a holy relic that could be worth millions—or could be the key to a worldwide terrorist plot. Deftly mixing history, science and fiction, Napier keeps the action escalating toward a satisfying climax.
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Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312936680
• ISBN 13: 9780312936686
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368