The Omega Factor
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- ¥1,500
発行者による作品情報
"Dan Brown fans will want to check this one out" (Publishers Weekly): The Ghent Altarpiece is the most violated work of art in the world. Thirteen times it has been vandalized, dismantled, or stolen. Why? What secrets does it hold?
Enter UNESCO investigator, Nicholas Lee, who works for the United Nations’ Cultural Liaison and Investigative Office (CLIO). Nick’s job is to protect the world’s cultural artifacts—anything and everything from countless lesser-known objects to national treasures.
When Nick travels to Belgium for a visit with a woman from his past, he unwittingly stumbles on the trail of a legendary panel from the Ghent Altarpiece, stolen in 1934 under cover of night and never seen since. Soon Nick is plunged into a bitter conflict, one that has been simmering for nearly two thousand years. On one side is the Maidens of Saint-Michael, les Vautours—the Vultures—a secret order of nuns and the guardians of a great truth. Pitted against them is the Vatican, which has wanted for centuries to both find and possess what the nuns guard. Because of Nick the maidens have finally been exposed, their secret placed in dire jeopardy—a vulnerability that the Vatican swiftly moves to exploit utilizing an ambitious cardinal and a corrupt archbishop, both with agendas of their own.
From the tranquil canals of Ghent, to the towering bastions of Carcassonne, and finally into an ancient abbey high in the French Pyrenees, Nick Lee must confront a modern-day religious crusade intent on eliminating a shocking truth from humanity’s past. Success or failure—life and death—all turn on the Omega Factor.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This lively standalone from bestseller Berry (the Cotton Malone series) centers on a panel stolen in 1934 from the Ghent Altarpiece, "one of the world's great works of art, created in the early part of the fifteenth century, at the threshold of the Renaissance, by two brothers, Hubert and Jan van Eyck." Early chapters alternate between Jan van Eyck and Nick Lee, a field operative in the present day dealing with artistic and cultural issues for UNESCO. Nick is in Ghent, Belgium, visiting his former fiancée, art restorer Kelsey Deal, who's now a Catholic nun. Kelsey is restoring the altarpiece at the Cathedral of Saint Bavo when a fire breaks out. Nick arrives on the scene minutes later, and Kelsey orders him to chase after the vandal responsible for the blaze, who has also stolen her laptop containing images of the masterpiece. Nick and Kelsey are soon racing around France on the trail of a conspiracy linked to the Catholic church that originated 2,000 years ago. Berry once again smoothly blends action and history. Dan Brown fans will want to check this one out.
