The Magic Circle: A Novel

by Katherine Neville

When her cousin is slain by an unknown assassin, Ariel Behn becomes the sole heir to a family legacy: a sinister cache of manuscripts that thrusts her into the deadly center of international intrigue--and an age-old enigma that spans the centuries. Whoever assembles and interprets the cryptic clues of this ancient mystery will possess the power to control the fate of the world.

What strange powers lie hidden within the manuscripts? Splashed against a lavish backdrop that sweeps from the rise of the Roman Empire to the fall of the Berlin Wall, THE MAGIC CIRCLE finds one woman standing at the center of it all: Ariel Behn. As she races across continents to reveal the dark secrets buried in her family's past, she begins to unlock the chilling truth of the coming millennium. . . .

• ISBN10: 0345423135
• ISBN13: 9780345423139
• Publish Date: 30 January 1999 (first published 10 February 1998)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Ballantine Books Inc.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 560
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780345423139

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

This is just a mess. There is chunks of infodumping, the main character seems to be related to almost everyone. Hitler is a pivotal character and the history seems not only to be adapted to suit but also warped to suit.

There are ways and means of doing this sort of book and this wasn't one of them. You really need to base it in real history and just warp a few minor points rather than have the historian in me. It wasn't a bad book but it was a book that could have been tidied up by a good editor.

It's a story of a woman whose life is turned around when she inherits a set of manuscripts when her brother dies. There are several interested parties in these documents and they're all determined to get them. During the investigations she finds out more about her family's past and she has to decided what to do with the papers.

It's a bit better thought out than the [book:da vinci code] but that's not saying an awful lot.