Maxine/Max had slept for a couple of hours and had just woke up in her condo that she had inherited from her father. Max was thinking about the food for a school as she was a caterer. Then Max got a call that she had a visitor downstairs, he had been calling all day trying to get a hold of her. He was Lars Lindstrom and he said he had known Max’s grandfather Samuel in Germany. He also said it was urgent. Max said yo let him come up to her condo. Max got dressed and thought of her schedule for the next day. Max loved to cook was making money from it was a bonus. Lars was an elderly well dressed man who said he had known Samuel but he had came to talk about her father Hiram. First he said he needed Max to trust him. That he was one of the few people that have an ancient seal from the Indus Valley in India. Samuel had given it to Lars when he had returned from the Indus Valley. Then Lars asked her id she knew about the Seal. When Max had been ten or eleven her grandfather told her he had been to the Indus Valley in India and went to visit the tomb of Colossus.and an archaeologist friend gave Samuel a copy of the Seal that had been owned by Colossus Lars added Hiram was doing some research before he committed a questionable “suicide” that he had taken over from Samuel. Lars said that he had been Samuel’s assistant in the lab he worked at Berliner Pharmaceuticals in Germany. Then Lars added five years after her father’s death he received a package sent by Hiram’s lawyer. It contained a coded research document and a letter Lars told Max to go ahead and read it. The letter said Hiram had been receiving threats from his former employer Berliner Pharmaceuticals. He said he was arranging to send Lars two packages . The first would have the coded research document. The second package would have a paper with the key to decode the research and a vial of green health pills his father Samuel had got from the Indus Valley. But he didn’t want Max involved. But Lars had never received the second package. Then Lars said he would give her some background, he said he had been a student at Berlin University when he had worked with Samuel. Samuel had been invited to India on an archaeological dig. They had found some mysterious green discs in the Indus Valley - medicinal pills. The locals claimed the pills were they were the pills of immortality. Because of it’s legend Samuel was excited and he brought some to Germany. The pills did prolong life by reducing metabolic rate. They did find a contagious bacteria in the pills. But then the Nazi’s came to power and Samuel being Jewish and went to a labor camp. After Samuel was taken Lars went to London. Samuel and Lars had stayed in touch but never met up again. Lars didn’t know the extent of Hiram's involvement in Samuel’s work until after Hiram’s death. But by the looks of it something about those pills make Berliners nervous. Lars hoped Max had some of Samuels or Hiram’s papers. Max said one night Samuel burned his papers in anger. All she has is the seal and a dairy that is mostly torn and burned. Max decides ro start her own research. Max hires Professor Julian McIntosh for help solve the mystery and they go around trying to protect the secrets from Berliner Pharmaceuticals, stay one step ahead of Berliner. Berliner will kill anyone who gets in the. Now someone is after the research, and pills, and Max,.There is also a second. set of thieves.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a quick fun read. I enjoyed the mystery, intrigue, and danger in this book. I liked the history from WW I I. I loved the twists and turns in this book. I felt like I was with Max as she traveled to several exotic places on her mission to solve the mystery behind the green pills together with Julian who have a romantic relationship also. I felt this was well written especially considering this was a first novel. I liked Max and Julian together. This did go a little too fast for me at times. I liked how Max came across realistically. I didn’t want to stop reading as I wanted to see what was going to happen next. This was a little bit of everything as far as I am concerned. I was pretty much guessing right until the end of this book. I enjoyed the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I recommend it.