The Book of Secrets by Tom Harper

Another excellent book from my own shelves, The Book of Secrets by Tom Harper. It just shows how many good books are hiding there. The book covers two separate stories, one in the past and one in the present. This structure I find very appealing, maybe because I love historical fiction. It is a mystery and thriller and it holds you captured to the very end.

"In a snowbound village in the German mountains, a young woman discovers an extraordinary secret. Before she can reveal it, she disappears. All that survives is a picture of a mysterious medieval playing card that has perplexed scholars for centuries. Nick Ash does research for the FBI in New York. Six months ago his girlfriend Gilliam walked out and broke his heart. Now he's the only person who can save her - if it's not too late. Within hours of getting her message Nick finds himself on the run, delving deep into the past before it catches up with him. Hunted across Europe, Nick follows Gillian's trail into the heart of a 500-year-old mystery. But across the centuries, powerful forces are closing around him. There are men who have devoted their lives to keeping the secret, and they will stop at nothing to protect it." 

The book might be compared to  The Da Vinci Code, although it does not have an overall religious theme, even if it is bordering. Nick's quest for Gilliam takes him and his friend Emily on a trip around Europe, in order to discover the meaning of the medieval playing cards, at the base of this story. Someone is following in their trail and leaving death behind. 

In the distant, medieval past Johann Gensfleisch is absorbed by his will to create something beautiful and lasting. Fate takes him through a Europe hit by the plague, poverty, and violence. He makes friends as well as enemies, but when he meets the talented painter Kaspar Drach, he is drawn into his not so organised world.  

"He was the most obscenely talented man I ever met - more so, I believe, than Nicholas Cusanus. While Cusanus tended his thoughts in walled gardens, Drach roamed freely across the earth; where Cusanus pruned, watered, shaped, and cropped, Drach sprayed his seed without thought for where it would land. Tangled meadows of bright and fantastical flowers sprouted wherever he walked. Though among their twisted stems, serpents lurked."

Both storylines are set with mystery and violence. With the historical story, Harper takes us into a world of darkness, as his characters are facing the hardships of the time. With the modern story, we are equally into something mysterious and hidden. It is fascinating, thrilling and a few surprises along the line. The language is beautiful, the characters are drawn with care, and we are allowed to follow them in the distant. The purpose of the chase stays open until the very end. A book that is difficult to put down.  Although it is a mystery and thriller, it is written in a poetic language that usually is not found in books like this.  My first experience with Tom Harper, but certainly not the last.