In the wild upper reaches of the Pamir mountains in Tajikistan, a guerrilla fighter vanishes, a school girl is murdered, and an eminent Harvard paleontologist disappears. To a shadowy government agency in Maryland, these are all signs that something has gone terribly wrong with the most extraordinary expedition ever mounted. Matt Mattison and Susan Arnot, who were once lovers and are now academic rivals, are dispatched to find the quarry their Harvard mentor was seeking – the secret of the origins of mankind.
John Darnton combines breathtaking suspense, thorough scientific research, and dazzling storytelling as archaeologists and rival governments attempt to track down a relic band of human-like creatures, who have survived on the roof of the world, in part because of their mysterious telepathic ability.
But the interlopers’ intrusion into a hidden garden of Eden rekindles a conflict just as critical as the one between man and neanderthal that took place 40,000 years ago.
Next to the stream was a single footprint, deep and abnormally thick. Matt bent down and looked closer. It looked almost human but it was too wide at the instep. “Okay, who’s crazy now?” Van shouted, looking about them wildly. “I told you, but you wouldn’t believe me”.