A medieval European city. A famous museum. Some grisly deaths. Very little research. A shadowy figure on the cover running in a fashion vaguely suggestive of danger.
Danger!
Professor Joe Bradley, Harvard-educated expert in religious history and symbology, is just hours into a research trip to Florence when he's thrown into the grip of a sinister scheme by a sinister sect to destroy the world, sinisterly – and Bradley's all that's left.
Confronted with the savage murder of the genial, elderly curator of the Uffizi, Bradley quickly realizes that geniality and old age are no match for malintent and bullets. Shockingly, all the signs point to Bradley – except for those that point to someone else: the curator's own granddaughter – enigmatic dialog vehicle, Adriana Modena.
On the run, they only have one clue: a cryptic message scrawled hastily across the museum floor in the curator’s dying minutes. The only other clue: a nearby portrait of legendary Italian astronomer, Galileo Galilei. There’s one more clue: a terrible secret pinned helpfully to a nearby fridge.
But a host of obstacles threaten to derail them: the police, sadistic hitmen, a few believable puzzles, a lot of punctuation, and textbook betrayal. The questions mount. Who can they trust? Will they ever stop to eat? When did being a white, middle class, American male cease to be a sure ticket through life? And why is a new main character introduced on page 112?
Tweedy academia and existential danger reunite in Galileo Had a Secret Too in a satirical romp through the genre that checks all the boxes: a plot, characters – and lots and lots of sects.