AustLit

'Laura Niven, a former New York journalist turned thriller-writer, returns to Oxford University (where she studied twenty years earlier) to help her daughter, Joanna, settle in to life as a first-year student. Laura stays with her former lover and Joanna's father, Philip Bainbridge, who is now a police-scene photographer. But the night before Laura is due to return to New York, Philip is called to a murder scene just outside Oxford. The victim is a young woman. Her throat has been slashed, her heart has been cut out, and in her chest cavity the police find an ancient-looking gold coin. The next day another murder is discovered with an almost identical MO this time, a silver coin has been left in the bowl of the murdered girl's skull. As Laura follows slender leads despite scepticism and resistance from the police, she soon discovers that these horrific murders are not just confined to the here and now. A story gradually emerges that connects the members of the Royal Society in the 1600s - including Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, and Christopher Wren - with alchemy and a modern-day search for the Philosopher's Stone. With this knowledge, Laura becomes the one person who, in a desperate race against time, has any chance of stopping.' (Libraries Australia)