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198 pages

English

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Vatican Inspector Domenico Conti is called to St. Paul's Basilica in Rome the morning after a break-in that leaves the sarcophagus empty and its guard dead. Conti is told to find the perpetrators but, more importantly, to recover the contents of the tomb. Dr. Dana McCarter, newly appointed director of the Advanced Institute for the Study of Antiquity at NYU, has her own secrets. Her groundbreaking work on the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was cause for her appointment to head the billion dollar initiative to unearth the secret roots of Western civilization. What no one suspects is that her success is based on an addiction to illegal trafficking in black market manuscripts. When a mysterious stranger gives Dana a tantalizing glimpse of a truly surprising scroll, she becomes obsessed with tracking down its source. Conti follows the trail of deceit to Dana's doorstep and the two form an unlikely team, each with their own motives for recovering the scrolls, which turn out to be five of Aristotle's lost dialogues. In their batle for the scrolls, Conti and Dana must confront their own demons as well as two powerfully evil forces:the Dionysian cultists who want to keep the scrolls hidden and the Muslim jihadists who want to reveal them in order to discredit Chritianity once and for all.

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Historical fiction

Thriller

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Publié par	Parmenides Publishing
Date de parution	27 octobre 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781930972568
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0661€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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BLACK MARKET TRUTH

THE ARISTOTLE QUEST BLACK MARKET TRUTH
A DANA McCARTER TRILOGY BOOK ONE
Sharon Kaye
PARMENIDES FICTION Las Vegas | Zurich | Athens
2008 Parmenides Publishing All rights reserved.
Published 2008 Printed in the United States of America
ISBN hard cover: 978-1-930972-30-8 ISBN soft cover: 978-1-930972-31-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kaye, Sharon M. The Aristotle quest : a Dana McCarter trilogy. Book I, Black market truth / Sharon Kaye. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-930972-30-8 (hard cover : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-1-930972-31-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Classical antiquities thefts-Fiction. 2. Aristotle-Manuscripts-Fiction. 3. Women scholars-Fiction. 4. Police-Italy-Rome-Fiction. 5. Religious adherents-Fiction. I. Title. PS3611.A918A89 2008 813 .6-dc22
2008035273
Typeset in Perpetua and Din by 1106 Design Printed by McNaughton Gunn in the United States of America Cartography [Map of Ancient Greece in 4th century BCE]: Mike Powers, Maps.com

Parmenides Fiction chose to print this title on materials with postconsumer recycled content or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. FSC materials are independently certified to assure consumers that they come from forests that are managed to meet the social, economic and ecological needs of present and future generations.
1-888-PARMENIDES www.parmenidesfiction.com
For Tris and Audrey
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Afterword
Glossary
Preface and Acknowledgements
I had my first grown-up encounter with Aristotle as a brand-new graduate student at the University of Toronto in 1992. I was there to pursue a PhD in philosophy, but I hadn t yet determined my area of specialization.
I started hanging around with students working in the classics, fascinated by the way they would spend hours and hours learning dead languages and discussing ancient history as though it were the evening news.
One day, an announcement that the great Joseph Owens was to give a seminar on Aristotle generated considerable excitement among these scholarly creatures. Father Owens, in his early eighties at that time, was a world-renowned Aristotle scholar (he is now deceased). His talk was to be given in the famous seminar room at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, which had hosted many other great classicists, beginning with the legendary Étienne Gilson in 1929.
Wanting to know what all the fuss was about, I decided to attend. On the appointed day, I parked my bicycle outside the Pontifical Institute and scurried inside just minutes before the seminar was to begin. Out of breath and disoriented, I scanned the room. It was smaller than I expected, dominated by a majestic old oak table. The table was surrounded by chairs and there were benches all along the walls. The room was already packed with expectant listeners speaking in hushed tones. There was just one seat left at the oak table, so I sat down.
The room fell completely silent. Digging through my satchel for a notebook and pen, I assumed the famous speaker must have arrived. I looked up. He hadn t. Was I imagining it, or was everyone looking at me?
Finally, mercifully, the man sitting to my left leaned over and whispered in my ear: You re sitting in Father Owens chair! Blushing furiously, I popped up and squeezed onto a bench along the wall just as Father Owens strode into the room and came to roost upon his (my?) seat. I always wondered whether he noticed that it was already a little bit warm.
Father Owens seminar focused on how Aristotle paved the way for Christianity. Call it sour grapes for having been ejected from my place at the table, but from the very beginning, I found the whole idea extremely suspicious. On that day, I vowed to find out who Aristotle really was. As time went on, the more I learned, the more I realized that nobody, not even the great Joseph Owens, really knew the answer.
Throughout my time at graduate school, I was told I had far too much imagination to be a historian. Maybe it s just as well, therefore, that I have never been able to write a scholarly monograph about Aristotle. A novel-or two or three-will have to do.
The Dana McCarter series is based on the scant information we possess regarding Aristotle s life and times. I wrote an essay called Fact and Fiction in Black Market Truth explaining the historical elements of the novel. It is printed in the Afterword at the back of this book. Spoiler alert: you wouldn t want to read it first!
I would like to thank John Carroll University for supporting my research and for providing a wonderful community in which to teach, learn, and grow. I would also like to thank Eliza Tutellier, my editor at Parmenides, for taking a chance on me and providing such sound guidance throughout the process. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Robert Martin for teaching me how to write about philosophy.
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
-Aristotle
Chapter One
Domenico Conti liked dead bodies, provided they were still warm.
Most people, making no fine distinctions, think a dead body is a dead body. Having worked homicide for twenty years, however, Conti knew there was a difference between warm and cold.
The colder the body, the colder the trail to the killer. The colder the body, the worse it looked, and the worse it smelled-unless of course it was freezing cold, which entailed a whole different set of problems.
Conti was aware of numerous reasons why one might prefer the rare warm body. But he was not aware of his own real reason.
The truth was that, although he was not conscious of it, he not only preferred warm bodies, he also preferred bodies that had been killed over those that had died of natural causes.
The body lying at his feet now was both killed and warm-probably dead no more than three hours. It belonged to a guard at St. Paul s Basilica, just outside the walls of Rome.
The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls was the largest church in Rome after St. Peter s. In December of 2006, after four years of excavation, archeologists unearthed the sarcophagus of St. Paul, which was buried under marble slabs beneath the altar. Although the Pope authorized public viewing of the sarcophagus, he declined to authorize its opening.
Now, someone had broken into the basilica in the night, leaving the sarcophagus empty and its guard dead. The crime had been called in by the archpriest an hour ago.
It was just past seven on a Saturday morning in mid February. The crime scene was already abuzz with various professionals. Conti needed to work fast.
He knelt close to the body, careful not to touch it. A young man. Maybe twenty-five. Throat cut. He leaned in and inhaled deeply through his nose. No unusual odors.
Just fresh death. Fresh kill, that is. What is it about fresh kill . . . ?
Scusilo, Ispettore Conti! It was the voice of Conti s assistant, behind him.
Un momento, Conti barked. He leaned in again and breathed, taking in the heat still radiating from the man. He closed his eyes. After another deep breath, he looked down the length of the body. That s when he saw it: a small smudge of blood on the guard s elbow. Based on the pattern of spatter from his neck wound, this blood could not belong to the guard.
Conti sat back on his heels and called a technician over, instructing him in rapid Italian to take a sample of the smudge for comparison against a sample from the victim, and then, presuming that they did not match, to run the smudge sample through the criminal DNA database.
Excuse me, Inspector, the assistant repeated.
What is it? Conti asked, without taking his gaze from the body. Someone to see you, sir.
Thank you, Conti said absently, finally turning to look.
A silver-haired man in a long black robe and red skullcap was kneeling in front of the rubble that was St. Paul s Tomb. Conti recognized him immediately: Cardinal Giuseppe Torelli, the most visible member of the papal curia. Cardinal Torelli had been in the news recently, promoting his new book about inner-city poverty. The proceeds were being donated to youth recreation facilities all around Rome, including one in the neighborhood where Conti lived.
Conti snapped to a standing position and straightened his trousers.
The cardinal was praying aloud in Latin, his voice cracking in lament. He turned and rose when he heard Conti approach.
Your Eminence, Conti said.
Ah, Inspector, the cardinal replied, reaching out his hands for a double-handed grasp. It is unspeakable, this crime. You must forgive my dishevelment. I came as soon as the archpriest called.
It is a great honor to meet you, Conti said. I only wish it were under better circumstances.
They surveyed the damage together: thick stone sarcophagus and protective barriers blown to pieces with precision explosives. The crumbled blast area made a stark contrast with the opulent interior of the church, an enormous space flanked by marble columns and topped high above by a gold-encrusted ceiling.
After a long, deep sigh, Cardinal Torelli turned back to Conti. Inspector, this place-it is very sacred and especially dear to the heart of the Most Holy Father. Every year, the sarcophagus is visited by millions of pilgrims who need to feel the power of St. Paul s healing spirit. This desecration, it is unbearable.
Cardinal Torelli looked imploringly at Conti. His face was deeply lined with all the troubles of humanity. He stalled, his lips