SECRET OF VESALIUS

'Frankenstein meets The Shadow of the Wind in a Gothic thriller set in the diabolical city of fin-de-siècle Barcelona.' Daniel Amat has left Spain and all that happened there behind him. Having just achieved a brilliant role in Ancient Languages at Oxford University and an even more advantageous engagement, the arrival of a letter - a demand - stamped Barcelona comes like a cold hand from behind. He arrives back in that old, labyrinthine and near-mythic city a few days before the great 1888 World Fair, amid dread whispers of murder - the injuries reminiscent of an ancient curse, and bearing the signs of the genius 16th century anatomist Vesalius. Daniel is soon pulled into the depths of the crime and eventually into the tunnels below Barcelona where his own dark past and the future of science are joined in a terrible venture, to bring the secret of Vesalius to life. A gripping historical thriller which makes of Barcelona a diabolical character, emerging out of the dark into a new electrical age, aflame with spirit, superstition and science. A bestselling novel published in 18 countries which mixes a passionate setting and cryptic mystery. 582pp, paperback.