A respected surgeon and rare-book collector is brutally murdered in his elegant Manhattan home, just hours after showing a book dealer the fifteenth-century manual of black magic-a grimoire-he had received from a grateful patient. Now the doctor's blood is everywhere, and the priceless grimoire is missing. The horrific death of her beloved father has shattered Beatrice O'Connell's quiet, sane, and orderly world. Only by tracking down the vanished malevolent tome-with its dark spells and salacious illustrations-can she hope to put things right. But the search is leading Beatrice, her ex-husband, and a mysterious occultist into an expanding labyrinth of powerful evils, a tangled web that reaches as far as the Vatican itself. What coveted secrets are hidden in the missing volume that threaten to turn Beatrice into precisely what her unseen and unrelenting enemies are determined to destroy? "A very dark, twisty thriller…Ms. Hitchcock has penned a thought-provoking book, which should please lovers of books like The Da Vinci Code…I found the book hard to put down."
"May be the epitome of the feminist thriller…This provocative, compelling, and unsettling novel brilliantly explores the misogyny of Western culture and particularly of the Catholic Church. The graphic violence may offend some readers, but this ought to be one of the most talked-about books of the year. Recommended for all fiction collections."
"Hitchcock's clear, straightforward prose and civilized, articulate protagonists…keep the pages turning."
