Shamash (the name of an Assyrian god) opens at Buckingham Palace in 1849 with Major Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, the pioneer of cuneiform deciphering, discussing with Queen Victoria his discovery in Ottoman-controlled Mesopotamia. Rawlinson will go on to make a discovery that even the liberal-minded Queen will want to suppress.
Precisely 2570 years earlier a young orphan is hiding in a sewer when the Assyrians pour over the walls of Samaria. He is deported, trained in a special task force and sent to Jerusalem to oversee Assyrian interests. With rebellion in the air, he discovers that a messianic figure has brought Assyria’s powerful enemies together and wields an horrific WMD.
Author Eddie Crockett on the preview chapters available to agents and publishers: "This is excellent in almost every respect - setting, premise, pace, inventive use of language ('mantis on a spring leaf'; 'light was a dancing spirit within the blackness'...) and, above all, a sense of gut-wrenching realism. A particular plus is the almost casual elegance with which certain elements are 'dropped' into the story - the Kingdom of the Two Rivers, the Whore of Babylon, etc. This is exemplary writing which, one hopes, will be sustained throughout the book. Loved it!"
AGENTS AND PUBLISHERS: Read the opening chapters of Shamash