Gold Mask

Can an ace detective outwit a thief with many faces? They call him ‘Gold Mask’: a fiendishly clever master of disguise whose crime spree has shocked Tokyo. The dogged detective Akechi Kogoro is on the trail, and soon the two become locked in a frenzied battle of wits as his seemingly superhuman nemesis leads a chase across Japan, gleefully tricking the police at every turn. Will this ingenious villain’s true identity be revealed – and will he, eventually, make a mistake?

The book focuses on the inauguration of the New Great Egyptian Museum, in which the death mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun is stolen. The archeology professor Thomas Dee will begin his search throughout Egypt and some cities of the Muslim world, together with the South African journalist Anne Lein. The plot suspects the black market of anti-grand theft, a Catholic Cardinal and several magnates as potential buyers. In the search they visit Vatican City, Luxor, Abu Dhabi, Southeast Asia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Morocco, the Greek islands of Skorpio, Mykonos, Santorini and the Alhambra itself in Spain.

A troubled English boy sets out to uncover the truth about his father’s death, from the Edgar Award–winning author of the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael. Following the death of his father at an archaeological dig in Greece, young Crispin Almond returned to England and the mother he barely knew. Now a difficult, morose, and unreachable teenager, he has been expelled from every school he’s attended. At her wits’ end, his mother decides Crispin needs a positive male role model and turns to a former friend, who disappeared from her life sixteen years earlier when she rejected his proposal of marriage. Hired by the woman he always loved to be her son’s tutor, Evelyn Manville is determined to break through Crispin’s protective shell. But the closer he gets to the troubled teen, the more unsettling their relationship becomes. Because, despite having no evidence, Crispin believes his father’s death in Greece was no accident, and he’s been secretly manipulating events to prove it. And now his plan could be drawing a murderer into all of their lives. With Death Mask, the Edgar, Agatha, and Gold Dagger Award–winning author of the Brother Cadfael Mysteries delivers a stand-alone novel that is “a literate and original piece of work” (Kirkus Reviews).