Nathaniel Coldhardt’s children, four talented misfits, break seventeen year-old Jonah Wish out of a Young Offender’s Institution. They need his computer skills to help them crack a Spartan cipher code that will lead them to the substance, Amrita, said to grant eternal life (65). Jonah is swept up in one dangerous assignment after another in different locations, including a museum break-in in Cairo to steal an ancient jar. But the jar is shattered in a fight with acolytes of Coldhardt’s rival. They are left with fragments that eventually lead them to Macedonia where, in an underground tomb, they find nightmarish secrets . hc

Originally published by Bloomsbury Great Britain, in 2006.