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The Serpent Papers

ebook / ISBN-13: 9781848666740

Price: £7.99

ON SALE: 29th January 2015

Genre: Fiction & Related Items / Thriller / Suspense

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**Ebook edition featuring exclusive extra reading material**

Barcelona, Summer 2003.


Three women are sacrificed to an unknown purpose, skin carved with a cryptic alphabet, tongues cut from their mouths. Sent beautiful, sinister letters – clues, or confessions? – Inspector Fabregat cannot decipher the warnings within. As Barcelona explodes in revelry on the Festival of St Joan, Natalia Hernandez, flower of the National Theatre and Catalan idol, lies broken on the steps of the Cathedral. The city bays for blood, Fabregat chases a shadow-like suspect and signs that whisper of secrets beyond his grasp.

Barcelona, Winter 2014.

Anna Verco – academic, book thief, savant – unearths letters hidden for centuries from a lightning-struck chapel in Mallorca. What they reveal compels her and Fabregat to reignite the Hernandez investigation. Every page she turns conceals a coded message; every street she treads leads her deeper into the labyrinth. As Fabregat baits her with suspects, and threats darken her steps, Anna hunts her own prey – the book that began it all, a medieval revelation written in the language of witches and alchemists: The Serpent Papers.

Anna believes this book will unlock the mystery.

She does not yet know she is the key.

What's Inside

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Reviews

Combines the intrigue of The Da Vinci Code with the mysticism of a Carlos Ruiz Zafon novel . . . This is a gripping tale in which every detail counts
Financial Times
The kind of rich, multi-layered story that demands and rewards commitment . . . A triumphant debut, by a young writer with an incredible imagination
The Times
Erudite alchemical thriller . . . Here we have an enigmatic heroine, a wonderful European city, plenty of cultural detail, a string of gruesome murders and a conspiracy that spans centuries . . . everything is relevant - so pay attention - and everything is enticing, for readers who enjoy this sort of game . . . she's an original, entertaining writer. I finished this episode wanting more
Guardian
Intelligent and richly realised
Oxford Times
A complex and ambitious literary thriller
Observer
If you're in search of a thriller, look no further than this novel by London-based Californian Jessica Cornwell. Anna Verco, the heroine, has drawn comparisons to Dragon Tattoo's Lisbeth Salander, and the book is a new take on Dan Brown's turf
Grazia
The slow circling towards the killer is thrilling, but Cornwell's real skill is in her piling up of legend and history to bring the quest for the manuscript alive. This is much more complex - and significantly more worth your time - than just another Da Vinci Code spin-off
Sunday Times
Remarkable . . . It will leave many readers impatient for the next
Literary Review
A breathless, mystical thriller . . . Will certainly become a cultish craze among all kinds of readers from radical feminists to modern-day mystics and especially those who love sectish puzzles and mystery
Irish Independent
Jessica Cornwell gives women a powerful voice . . . A nail-biting page-turner with a vital female protagonist who stands out in a thriller market flooded with the male-centric books . . . A complex, non-linearly-told narrative that haunts the mind long after the last page
Straits Times
A feminist gothic thriller set in Barcelona, it moves back and forth between the 1300s and the present day
Big Issue
A supremely clever feminist murder mystery
Vagenda

The Serpent Papers Trilogy