Synopses & Reviews
Ludwig II, the Fairy-tale King of Bavaria, is today remembered for his beautiful castlesandmdash;popular tourist destinations that inspired the Disney Castle, but whose origins were much more fantastical than anything Disney could dream up. Also known as the Mad King, Ludwig was deposed in 1886 after being declared insane by doctors who had never met him. He promptly diedandmdash;mysteriously drowned in waist-deep waterandmdash;his eccentric castles his only legacy.
Master of historical suspense Oliver Pandouml;tzsch brings the Mad King back to life in The Ludwig Conspiracy. An encoded diary by one of Ludwigandrsquo;s confidants falls into the hands of modern-day rare book dealer Steven Lukas, who soon realizes that the diary may bring him more misery than money. Others want the diary as wellandmdash;and they will kill to get it. Lukas teams up with a beautiful art detective, Sara Lengfeld, to investigate each of Ludwigandrsquo;s three famous castles for clues to crack the diaryandrsquo;s code as mysterious thugs and Ludwigandrsquo;s fanatical followers chase them at every step. Just what in the diary could be so explosive?
Combining contemporary mystery and a gripping historical saga and centered on an ingenious code that can be cracked only with a combination of modern computers and nineteenth-century texts, The Ludwig Conspiracy is a bold new thriller from the best-selling author of The Hangmanandrsquo;s Daughter series.
Review
"[A] quickly paced adventure that wears its considerable learning lightly and of higher literary quality than The Da Vinci Code....Fun for most of the way and very likely to be one of next summer's popular vacation reads." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Mosse's obvious love of the region's Occitan language infuses her prose with great passion. However, the trick of alternating story lines becomes confusing, as does the irritating plethora of mystical objects. A flawed work..." Library Journal
Review
"Dr. Tanner's headlong quest for the truth is often exhilarating, and if you can also get hooked on Alaïs' ancient melodrama (I ultimately couldn't, though I admired its intricacy), Labyrinth will make for a ripping yarn. (Grade: B+)" Entertainment Weekly
Synopsis
In this extraordinary thriller, rich in the atmospheres of medieval and contemporary France, the lives of two women born centuries apart are linked by a common destiny.
Synopsis
July 2005. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig, stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery-two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth.
Eight hundred years earlier, on the eve of a brutal crusade that will rip apart southern France, a young woman named Alais is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. Now, as crusading armies gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take a tremendous sacrifice to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe.
Synopsis
A riveting dual-period narrative that blends a haunting supernatural thriller with the vivid history of Tudor London
Historian Annie Kendall arrives at Londons Bristol House on an assignment to research ancient artifacts from the Holy Land. Shes desperate to escape her troubled past with the help of the shadowy employer who has hired her for an unusual, but well-paid, mission. So Annie is determined to ignore the strange manifestations in her flatincluding the appearance of a ghostly Carthusian monk. When she crosses paths with Geoff Harris, a well-known TV journalist and a dead ringer for the strange apparition, they are called upon to crack an enigmatic code, still unbroken after five hundred years.
Widely acclaimed for her historical fiction, Beverly Swerling delivers an enchanting and epic tale of a historian and a monk half a millennium apartand the unsolved mysteries of Tudor London that bring them together.
Synopsis
From the best-selling author of The Hangman's Daughter, a historical thriller set in contemporary Bavaria, about Ludwig II's mysterious death and the long-lost diary that could unlock its secrets.
About the Author
OLIVER PandOuml;TZSCH, born in 1970, has worked for years as a scriptwriter for Bavarian television. He is a descendant of one of Bavariaandrsquo;s leading dynasties of executioners. Pandouml;tzsch lives in Munich with his family.
Lee Chadeayne is a former classical musician and college professor. He was one of the charter members of the American Literary Translators Association and is editor-in-chief of ALTAandnbsp;News.