Product Description

70 AD. A group of Roman soldiers crossing the Sahara desert is destroyed by a ferocious and mysterious presence hidden in a solitary tower at the extreme borders of the sea of sand. The sole survivor, the Etruscan seer Avile Vipinas, is inexplicably saved by the sound of his silver sistrum.

Nineteen centuries later, young American scholar Philip Garrett is investigating his father’s disappearance in the desert 10 years earlier when he discovers the house of Avile Vipinas in the underground ruins of Pompeii, sealed by the earthquake of 79 AD.The ancient seer, before his death, had tried to describe the horrific presence in the Tower of Solitude and to make the first faltering steps to its destruction . . .

Who is the ancient civilization – older than the oldest known – that created this tower? What is its purpose?

After conquering the ancient world with his bestselling novels of antiquity, Valerio Manfredi has written a page-turning period thriller with an ancient twist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116643 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Daily Express
'an absolutely terrific thriller by the Italian writer
...Manfredi, who shows silly old Dan Brown how it should be done'

Nottingham Evening Post
'What Manfredi comes up with is another page-turner that will keep
readers gripped'

About the Author

Valerio Massimo Manfredi is professor of classical archaeology at Luigi Bocconi University in Milan. He has published nine works of fiction, including the 'Alexander' trilogy, which has been translated into 24 languages in 38 countries. He has written and hosted documentaries on the ancient world and has written screenplays for cinema and television.

Customer Reviews

a curate's egg
Interesting to read the huge divergance of reviews about this book on Amazon. it seems you either loved it or you hated it with no middle ground permissable. I have just finished the book ( 5 minutes ago ) and feel the need to write a review that lies in between these extremes.
I'll start with the frustrating. The cover suggests a Roman desert novel which is unfortunate as only the prologue is set in Roman times. This may be the fault of the publishers who should have made it far clearer that this was not a classic Manfredi antiquity novel but a more modern thriller. The love interest, I agree with a previous reviewer, was poorly handled and highly improbable which confirms that Manfredi should stay well away from Mills and Boone territory. The telecommunication device hurtling through space, orbiting round some distant galaxy and then hurtling back with Marconi tracking it all the way was unfortunately so ridiculous as to be laughable. I know other mythological aspects were also ridiculous but I thought Manfredi managed to weave them in quite well. But the huge frustration was the ending. As the various protaganists approach the tower I expected a denouement that would neatly fit all the jigsaw pieces into place. But not a bit of it - the ending turned into one horrible and it seems very hastily written mess. I had to read the last few pages again to try and extract some sort of hidden meaning but I simply could not. What destroyed the tower? What was in the tower? What was the meaning of the Cain reference? Why did the hunter have to destroy the tombs and what was in them? What were the faceless creatures ( Jobert's comments were thoroughly unhepful )What was the tower for and why did it need to be destroyed anyway? Immensely frustrating.
But the book did have it's good points - the mythological references mixed in with the early creation story were ingenious. I liked Manfredi's description of ancient sites ( especially the catacomb under the monastry in Italy ) and his obvious familiarity with this subject. The chief villain Selsnick was hugely entertaining ( Alan Rickman should play him in the film version ). The dodgy workings of the Catholic church always make for a good read and the plot ( until the end ) spun me along quite nicely ( I finished the book in 3 days which must say something for it ).
So there you have it. A ripping yarn that was flawed in places and finished in a total mess. A shame really as it had good potential.

Very Disappointing
I enjoyed the Alexander trilogy, Tyrant and The Last Legion, so naturally I assumed this book would be as good. Sadly no. I've read this to the bitter end in the vain hope that it would improve. That didn't happen. I didn't understand what was going on, the characterisations were weak, and the whole thing made no sense. And the ending .... well I'm not even going to mention that! I don't know if it's the translation from Italian that has ruined this book - I was left feeling as if I should be putting in sentences myself to make the whole thing more understandable. Or perhaps this author is just riding the crest of a wave and trotting out rubbish that will sell just because of the success of his previous books. It was awful. I've never reviewed a book on Amazon before, but this has incensed me so much that I felt the need to write this - that's how bad this book is.

Awful ... no ... really i mean it !
What a mess! It was difficult to follow, quite a few times I would have to check the characters names because you couldn't work out who they were or what they were supposed to be doing. Some time before the end i began to suspect we were not going to learn anything... i was right. I thought for a moment of going over the last few pages again in the vain hope i had missed something significant that would help it all make sense ... but frankly I couldn't be bothered and i suspect it would of made any difference.

A bad cross between an episode of Lost and a Clive Cussler book.

Hopeless ... don't buy it, or borrow it.