Product Review

Humankind is about to stumble over biotechnology's bleeding edge.

Ben Gage, busy editing a collection of first century texts in a backwater of southern Syria, has been pressed into bringing his team to search the nearby ruins of Palmyra for a downed American pilot.

There he learns ISIS looters have in their trove of artifacts a scroll that may shed light on the mystery, resulting from profound contradictions in the historical sources, of the ultimate fate of Zenobia, Palmyra's third century queen whose daring revolt against Rome netted her the Red Sea ports active in India's spice and silk trade and, possibly, an abundant source of gold. Sensing a wider plot, Ben seizes the scroll and with no choice but to parse the clues on his own, sets the translations aside half-done.

Determined to halt the dispersal of Syria's archeological heritage through Turkish indifference and the high-end art markets of Europe, Ben and his team pursue an enemy and a threat entirely unsuspected, thousands of miles away.