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.
Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Tower is a modern thriller solving an ancient mystery. AD 70. A ferocious, mysterious force hidden in a solitary tower annihilated a squad of Roman soldiers advancing through the Sahara desert. There was a single survivor: the Etruscan diviner Avile Vipinas, who later described the horror of the creature in the tower and suggested how it could be destroyed. Nearly 2,000 years later, to find the tower and solve its unutterable mystery, three men venture into the heart of the Sahara: an archaeologist following the traces of his father, a colonel from the Foreign Legion thirsting for revenge, and a priest who puts his faith to the ultimate test. Just what is the dark being that slumbers in the tower?
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.
