Creating an exhibition for her college, Lizzie discovers connections to an Italian prince with a family collection from the Renaissance. In Bologna, Lizzie finds ancient alligators, master paintings, unicorn tusks, and rarities from around the globe in a “cabinet of curiosities.” The mummified occupant of a sarcophagus draws her into a mystery that reaches from ancient Egypt to WWII Italy.
Praise for Mary Malloy’s work: “A tour de force—fascinating, highly readable, and meticulously researched.”—Nathaniel Philbrick “Meticulously researched and engagingly written.”—Seattle Times “In the tradition of Byatt’s Possession, Malloy’s debut novel is a complex and masterfully woven tale that will keep readers up far into the night.”—Caroline Preston, author of Jackie by Josie and Gatsby’s Girl Historian Lizzie Manning didn’t set out to become a sleuth, and she had no intention of becoming personally involved in a medieval mystery. Her expertise lay in eighteenth-century maritime voyages, and her assignment was to find a Tlingit Indian corpse robbed from its grave two hundred years ago during Captain Cook’s Pacific voyage. First accident, then compulsion, pull her deeper into the past, through thirty generations of one British family. Lizzie’s sources aren’t fingerprints and firearms, but documents, artifacts, paintings, architecture, and even the landscape—though modern forensic science helps clarify what happened to a few ancient corpses. Lizzie’s work takes on personal meaning as she is drawn into her own family’s history of insanity and a search for a Crusader’s disembodied heart. As with Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody and Amanda Cross’ Kate Fansler, Mary Malloy creates a heroine who is a respected scholar in her field, and who draws on her expertise to solve the mysteries that come her way. Mary Malloy, PhD, is the author of four maritime history books. She is a professor of maritime history at Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and of museum studies at Harvard University.
Praise for Mary Malloy's The Wandering Heart:"An impressive fiction debut. . . . Malloy mixes history and fantasy with flair and delivers a wonderfully satisfying puzzler."—Publishers Weekly"A fabulous thriller. . . . A modern psychological tale with strong implications of horror."—MBR The Bookwatch"Mystery à la Gothic. . . . Historian Malloy does her research proud."—Mystery SceneThe second book in the Lizzie Manning trilogy. Following the path of a medieval pilgrimage, historian Lizzie Manning finds unexpected danger. Chaucer may have based his Wife of Bath on a real woman, whose descendant holds certain artifacts, but will the investigation lead to something more sinister? Are the bones of St. Thomas Becket, believed to have been destroyed nearly six hundred years ago, hidden in Canterbury Cathedral, and is someone willing to kill to protect the secret?Mary Malloy is the author of four maritime history books, including Devil on the Deep Blue Sea, which won the 2006 John Lyman Book Award for best maritime biography. Her first historical mystery The Wandering Heart introduced historian Lizzie Manning. Malloy has a PhD from Brown University and teaches maritime history at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and Museum Studies at Harvard University.