Equinox (small-format edition)

Michael White

What links Isaac Newton to a series of horrific murders and a centuries-old quest for occult knowledge and the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone?

Oxford. A young woman is found brutally murdered, her throat cut. Her heart has been removed and in its place lies an ancient gold coin. A few hours later, another woman is found dead. The MO is identical, except that this time her brain has been removed, and a silver coin lies glittering in the bowl of her skull.

Laura Niven is a former New York journalist visiting the city where she’d been a student twenty years earlier. As Laura follows slender leads, despite scepticism and resistance from the police, she soon discovers that these horrific murders are not just confined to the here and now. A story gradually emerges that connects the members of the Royal Society in the 1600s — including Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, and Christopher Wren — with alchemy and a modern-day search for the Philosopher’s Stone.

With this knowledge, Laura becomes the one person who, in a desperate race against time, has any chance of stopping the killer from completing a terrifying series of ritual murders.

Equinox is a riveting thriller that spans centuries as it unravels the mania behind the pursuit of occult knowledge.

Michael White

Author photo

Michael White has been a science editor of British GQ, a columnist for the Sunday Express in London, and a member of the band Thompson Twins (1982). Between 1984 and 1991 he was a science lecturer at d'Overbroeck's College in Oxford before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the international bestsellers Stephen Hawking: a life in science; Leonardo: the first scientist; and Tolkien: a biography. He now lives in Sydney, Australia. Equinox is his first novel.

Website: http://www.michaelwhite.com.au