A mysterious book with a dangerous secret. An evil brotherhood out to conquer the world. One man stands between them . . . with his family in the balance. In the twelfth century, Henry the Lion collected the rarest relics in Christendom. And to protect his most precious acquisitions, he encoded the whereabouts in a gorgeous illuminated manuscript called The Gospels of Henry the Lion. The manuscript has been showing up and disappearing ever since. No one knows where the relic has been hidden . . . or its ultimate power. Only one man holds the key to the mystery. He's carrying it in his briefcase at his son's school for show-and-tell, and he thinks it's a fake. But he's about to find out just how real it is. Because the wolves are rapidly closing in. And if August Adams can't decode the secret in time, the world's balance of power will forever be altered. Editorial ReviewsFrom Publishers WeeklyBetrayals, secret societies, the quest for an ancient artifact of great religious significance--all the familiar elements of countless Dan Brown imitations are on display with limited dramatic effect in Bronleewe's second thriller to feature New York City rare book dealer August Adams (after 2007's Illuminated). Out of the blue, August's estranged father sends August the legendary 12th-century Gospels of Henry the Lion, instantly placing the bookseller and those near and dear to him in the sights of a shadowy and vicious group known as the Black Vehm. Expository passages about lost treasure, secrets buried in the Antarctic ice and the Nazis' search for the Holy Lance alternate with scenes of shoot-outs, stabbings and bludgeonings. Readers may struggle to empathize with the cartoonish characters, like August's terrified young son, who, with agents of the Black Vehm in hot pursuit, worries he'll die before learning what his grandfather meant by the expression spring chicken. (Aug.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.