The Parchment Maze

"The Parchment Maze" by the Bulgarian writer Ludmila Filipova is an archival suspense thriller, which topped national best-seller lists for years and which is currently in its sixth reprinting. In 2012, National Geographic made a film based on the book and featuring the author, entitled Sword in the Stone & the Orpheus Amulet. The novel combines an intellectual puzzle structure with real archeological evidence plus a healthy jolt of fantasy. The Parchment Maze itself has a curious history - created in 2007 by Ludmila Filipova and published in January of 2009, could its sensational discoveries be the true and unacknowledged source of the literary angel-mania that swept the globe in 2010? And what might really lie behind the well-known stories? The Parchment Maze offers readers a totally new way to look at human history and theories about the angelic ones.

"The Parchment Maze" is an archival suspense thriller, which topped national best-seller lists for years and which is currently in its sixth reprinting. In 2012, "National Geographic" made a film based on the book and featuring the author, entitled "Sword in the Stone & the Orpheus Amulet". The novel combines real archeological evidence plus a healthy jolt of fantasy. "The Parchment Maze" itself has a curious history – created in 2007 and published in January of 2009, could its sensational discoveries be the true and unacknowledged source of the literary angel-mania that swept the globe? "The Parchment Maze" offers readers a totally new way to look at human history and theories about the angelic ones.

Some see them as saints and deities, while great artists such as Ovid, Dante and Orpheus described them as “shades.” Thousands of others have called them angels, but few have ever descended to the bowels of the earth to discover their true faces. Today, however, for the first time, a human being is close to grasping their true essence. While studying similarities between Christianity and Thracian Orphism, archeologist Vera Kandilova stumbles across perplexing symbols tied to a prehistoric Balkan civilization that mysteriously disappeared 5,000 years ago. What begins as a purely academic scavenger hunt across Germany, Russia, Italy and Bulgaria leads her to frescoes in the Roman catacombs, a medieval amulet, engraved golden tablets, prehistoric clay vessels and ultimately to a cryptic manuscript called The Parchment Maze. The intellectual puzzle quickly gets visceral – after a series of murders, thefts of valuable artifacts and a kidnapping, the clues show Vera the path to uncovering the secret of the legendary incorporeal ones – those who jealously guard the most ancient knowledge from humanity and grant insight only to enlightened individuals such as Jesus and Orpheus. Their secrets have been sought over the centuries by powerful scientists and politicians, including Hitler, numerous popes, secret services and military organizations.
Vera is determined to follow a trail of clues to the Lower Kingdom before the handsome assassin Ariman, with pale skin and colorful eyes, can obliterate them – and Vera herself. An underground brotherhood led by the ghoulish Incorporeal One has raised Ariman to be a cold-blooded automaton. However, the merciless killer is also on a secret mission of his own – the only thing that could possibly tempt him from his path is love, since angels are capable of loving as no human being can…

“Fiction and science combine in an intriguing novel based on real archaeological discoveries and actual icons, a daring combination of Dan Brown and Umberto Eco. Could the legend of Orpheus and his descent into the Underworld be more than just mythology? There is a supernatural love story, there are secrets; there is murder, there is history; from Berlin to Moscow, from Rome to Burma, the novel is sure to intrigue." Colin Falconer, author of twenty novels, translated into seventeen languages over twenty-five years.