My Library

The Charlemagne Pursuit: A Novel by Steve Berry is a historical conspiracy novel centered around the Piri Reis map; a group of mythical beings, The Watchers; the disappearance of a top secret Navy submarine and a conspiracy stretching from Charlemagne's court to Hitler's bunker and into the highest levels of modern American government.

The Piri Reis map is a map that should not exist.  It was drawn on a gazelle skin in 1513 by Piri Reis, a Turkish admiral.  The map shows western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of South America, and the northern coast of Antarctica - 300 years before Antarctica was discovered.  More importantly, it shows the actual coastline, under the ice.

Fans of Tom Clancy will love the intrigue.  The great thing about this sort of conspiracy theory is that you don't have to believe the conspirators are correct, or even sane; all you have to believe is that the conspirators believe their own mythology. When those who believe have access to classified intelligence and secret military equipment things begin to get interesting.

Dan Brown fans and others of a less skeptical bent, the explanation of the Piri Reis map Berry presents, a lost race of humans with advanced technology that were in contact with European and Asian cultures, is intriguing.  In fact, it may be a more believable explanation for the map, for the similarities among widespread cultures, reports of white men in Aztec myths, stories of lost continents, than many alternate theories.

Whether you approach it with the skeptics willing suspension of disbelief or the mystics open contemplation of what might be, the book is a great read, in keeping with Berry's other work.