Book description
Cologne, 1260. The great cathedral, the most ambitious building in all
Christendom, is rising above the city. In its shadow seethes a society
in ferment: traumatised Crusaders returning from the Holy Land,
religious tensions poised to explode into violence, a burgeoning
merchant class that despises the old aristocracy and is determined to
seize power. Against this backdrop Jacob the Fox, a flame-haired petty
thief, witnesses a murder - the cathedral's architect, pushed to his
death from the scaffold by a black-clad assassin. Soon Jacob is on the
run, convinced the Angel of Death is on his trail, as the killer pursues
him through medieval Cologne's seedy underworld. To survive he must
uncover a vengeful conspiracy that threatens to tear the city apart and
stain the sacred project with blood. 'Rises well above the level of
most historical mysteries' Independent Frank Schätzing is the author
of the international bestseller The Swarm, which turned him into
Germany's most successful thriller writer in decades. A winner of the
Corine Prize, and the German Science Fiction Prize, Schätzing lives and
works in Cologne.
