At the start of this well-written and sophisticated thriller from Tobias (Deva
), a strange one-horned animal breaks out of a storage crate being unloaded at the Port of Antwerp and disappears into the city streets. The initial police inquiry reveals that someone may have weakened the container to allow the creature, which could be the legendary unicorn, to escape. Meanwhile, Martin Olivier, a London attorney specializing in liquidating estates, gets a cryptic message from his uncle James requesting they meet at a remote French chateau. There James informs Martin of a family secret connected with the Order of the Golden Fleece, a venerable society whose members may be protecting the location of the actual Garden of Eden, the home of animals long believed extinct. Aided by his wife, a curator and Renaissance expert, Olivier pieces together the clues linking Beethoven, Rousseau and Sir Thomas More, among many others, to find the truth. The novel's central conceit may be hard for some readers to swallow, but those looking for an original twist on the ancient conspiracy theme will be well rewarded. (May)
