The Fatal Scroll
A Herculaneum Mystery
ISBN-13: 9781778524172
Author(s): Eric Siblin
Subjects: FF
Publisher: Ecw Press
Publisher Imprint: Ecw Press Digital
Publication Date: 05-06-2025
Format: Ebook
Availability: In stock
£7.99
About the book
Marcus Sinclair is a history teacher whose life is stuck in neutral when he inherits a papyrus scroll from his antiquarian uncle. The mysterious scroll might contain a lost masterpiece from ancient Rome or perhaps an ancient recipe for personal tranquility, but it's unreadable unless Marcus can figure out a way to unroll the scroll without destroying it. His quest takes him to Naples, where he befriends a Google software engineer days before the man is found dead. Marcus is interviewed by an investigative journalist, Kristi Grainger, and they find themselves on parallel paths leading to a Neapolitan trafficker in antiquities, a tech mogul obsessed with the distant past, and a clutch of academics searching for the lost library of Herculaneum. In a seaside city that is by turns lush and lethal, Marcus must confront the unravelling of more than a scroll. This novel is inspired by a real place - the Villa dei Papri, the only library from antiquity to have survived - and coincides with the Vesuvius Challenge, a real-life international competition to decipher Herculaneum scrolls.