The Map of the Creator opens in 1952 in the city of Rome. Our narrator, JosMara, islike Europe itselfstruggling to recover from the chaotic and character-defining events that transpired during the previous fifteen years. Those events haunt him still, and he and his wife, Montse, attempt not to dwell on their past, until the day they read about a mysterious death by decapitation of an old acquaintance, and the memories are brought back to JosMara in an uncontainable rush.

And so our narrator begins his tale. It is 1937, in the thick of the Spanish Civil War. JosMara and Montse are two of a group of Spaniards thrown together, forced to wait out the war in refuge at the Spanish Academy in Rome. Unlike the rest of his compatriots, JosMara has no strong feelings either way about the Fascist or Nationalist ideologies that are causing such bloodshed in his home country; it is only the beautiful and bookish Montse who ignites his passion. When Montse and JosMara sell a sixteenth century text discovered in the Spanish Academy's forgotten library, they unwittingly become embroiled in an underground Nazi plot to collect mystic artifacts for the practice of the black arts. The most powerful artifact soughtthe one most coveted by the führeris The Map of the Creator, a legendary document depicting the power centers of the universe, said to be penned by God himself.

When the handsome and sinister Prince Junio, a wealthy Italian Fascist and Nazi sympathizer who is in pursuit of the map, appears to take a romantic interest in Montse, she is recruited to spy on him. As World War II blazes into full force, the idealistic Montse becomes more and more deeply involved in espionage, as does JosMara, for his own reasons.

Covering the most tumultuous and fascinating period of recent historyfrom the beginning of the Spanish Civil War to the end of World War IIThe Map of the Creator brilliantly re-creates the dark intrigue, romantic entanglements, and divided loyalties of a war-torn Europe whose insidious repercussions will continue to play out in the destinies of its characters long after the war is over.