One of the most captivating books you will ever read, Bill Napier's debut novel Splintered Icon will shatter your illustions with its high-stakes plot,fascinating characters, and unrelenting suspense...

"Intriguing and imaginative. An inventive piece of storytelling."  

--Steve Berry, national bestselling author of The Amber Room

"Napier nimbly twists two separate tales into a thrilling novel of exploration, discovery, and ultimately, survival. Fans of Dan Brown take note, this is a one-sitting book."

--Jack Du Brul, USA Today bestselling author of The Medusa Stone

Antiquarian bookseller Harry Blake is hired to appraise a four-hundred-year-old journal bequeathed to a wealthy landowner. At first, it appears to be only the curiously coded diary of a young cabin boy aboard Sir Walter Raleigh's celebrated 1585 Elizabethan expediticn. But when Harry's client is murdered and his own life is threatened, he realizes that he's opened the door to a mystery worth killing for...

Enlisting the aid of eminent map dealer Zola Khan, Harry uncov- ers something else. Buried in the cryptic writings are puzzling references to a "'secret purpose." terrified revelations of murder at sea. and an astonishing disclosure: the location of an invaluable holy relic thought lost for more than a thousand years.