The Magic Circle

Katherine Neville, bestselling author of The Eight, combines gripping historical fiction with a modern-day thriller to create The Magic Circle--an astonishing novel of mankind's quest to harness the power of earth and the heavens.

Snake River, Idaho, 1989--Ariel Behn, a toxic materials expert at a remote nuclear site, finds her well-ordered life shattered when her cousin is slain by an unknown assassin. His shocking death leaves Ariel sole heir to a family legacy: a sinister cache of manuscripts that sweeps her into the deadly center of international intrigue--and a mystery that spans the centuries. . . .

Jerusalem, 32 AD--During the last week in the life of Christ, as the world stands on the brink of a new two-thousand-year cycle, Emperor Tiberius works desperately to decipher the tantalizing clues to an age-old enigma. He will not be the only one. For whoever assembles and interprets these cryptic clues will possess the power to control the fate of the world. . . .

Now, At the center of this circle of ancient riddles stands the one woman who can pull the strands together: Ariel Behn. What strange powers lie hidden within the manuscripts? As Ariel races across continents to reveal the dark secrets buried in her family's past, she begins to unlock the chilling truth of the coming millennium.

Boldly incorporating contemporary characters and real-life historical figures--including the Apostles, Caligula, the Romanovs, and Genghis Khan--Katherine Neville takes us on a fascinating journey from the rise of the Roman Empire to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Richly textured and marvelously entertaining, The Magic Circle is an epic for our time.