Splintered Icon

Book excerpt: 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.