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- Droemer Knaur (Germany)
Read our sample translation of The Devil’s Handwriting
About the book
Zina Welter, a brilliant young mathematician, works as an analyst at a multinational bank in New York. When she hands over inside information on the bank’s operations to the American government, Zina is not only fired, she faces the threat of court action and being sued for damages. In a single day she finds her life derailed. She returns to the Netherlands, where her old professor from Princeton approaches her with the Voynich manuscript, a fiftheenth-century illustrated work, written in an unknown language. No one has yet been able to crack this Holy Grail of decryption. Drawn to the mystery, Zina finds herself slowly beginning to develop an algorithm that could be the key to unlocking the manuscript’s secret. At a meeting with Voynich experts, she reveals her plan. From that point onwards, Zina is swept along a journey across Europe, accompanying a motley crew of specialists, each with motives of their own for wanting to decipher the manuscript. As its true significance begins to reveal itself, unsettling events come in quick succession. Whom can Zina still trust? The NSA is just one of the organizations that has tried and failed to break the code. There are many theories to date, yet not a single word has been decrypted.