In the near present day a British and an Italian researcher are offered more money than they can refuse to travel to Jordan and investigate some manuscripts that have gone missing along with the priest who was studying them all whilst the eponymous tower – the world’s tallest building that looms over the city – is nearing completion. Chapters alternate between the present and sixteenth century Rome where another tower is being constructed – St Peter’s Basilica – and the writer of the missing manuscripts’ story unfolds. This is a brilliantly gripping, clever thriller.
70 AD. A group of Roman soldiers crossing the Sahara desert is destroyed by a ferocious and mysterious presence hidden in a solitary tower at the extreme borders of the sea of sand. The sole survivor, the Etruscan seer Avile Vipinas, is inexplicably saved by the sound of his silver sistrum.
70 AD. A group of Roman soldiers crossing the Sahara desert is destroyed by a ferocious and mysterious presence hidden in a solitary tower at the extreme borders of the sea of sand. The sole survivor, the Etruscan seer Avile Vipinas, is inexplicably saved by the sound of his silver sistrum.
Nineteen centuries later, young American scholar Philip Garrett is investigating his father’s disappearance in the desert 10 years earlier when he discovers the house of Avile Vipinas in the underground ruins of Pompeii, sealed by the earthquake of 79 AD.The ancient seer, before his death, had tried to describe the horrific presence in the Tower of Solitude and to make the first faltering steps to its destruction . . .
Who is the ancient civilization – older than the oldest known – that created this tower? What is its purpose?
After conquering the ancient world with his bestselling novels of antiquity, Valerio Manfredi has written a page-turning period thriller with an ancient twist.
Valerio Massimo Manfredi is professor of classical archaeology at Luigi Bocconi University in Milan. He has published over nine works of fiction, including the 'Alexander' trilogy, which has been translated into 24 languages in 38 countries. He has also written and hosted documentaries on the ancient world, and has written screenplays for cinema and television.
70 AD. A group of Roman soldiers crossing the Sahara desert is destroyed by a ferocious and mysterious presence hidden in a solitary tower at the extreme borders of the sea of sand.
The Tower features in the following genres: Action Adventure, Historical Fiction, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, Recommendations
Paperback, Hardback. Not Available.
The Tower was written by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and published by Pan Macmillan
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