The Wandering Heart

About this book

Praise for Mary Malloys work: A tour de forcefascinating highly readable and meticulously researched.Nathaniel Philbrick Meticulously researched and engagingly written.Seattle Times In the tradition of Byatts Possession Malloys debut novel is a complex and masterfully woven tale that will keep readers up far into the night.Caroline Preston author of Jackie by Josie and Gatsbys Girl Historian Lizzie Manning didnt set out to become a sleuth and she had no intention of becoming personally involved in a medieval mystery. Her expertise lay in eighteenth-century maritime voyages and her assignment was to find a Tlingit Indian corpse robbed from its grave two hundred years ago during Captain Cooks Pacific voyage. First accident then compulsion pull her deeper into the past through thirty generations of one British family. Lizzies sources arent fingerprints and firearms but documents artifacts paintings architecture and even the landscapethough modern forensic science helps clarify what happened to a few ancient corpses. Lizzies work takes on personal meaning as she is drawn into her own familys history of insanity and a search for a Crusaders disembodied heart. As with Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody and Amanda Cross Kate Fansler Mary Malloy creates a heroine who is a respected scholar in her field and who draws on her expertise to solve the mysteries that come her way. Mary Malloy PhD is the author of four maritime history books. She is a professor of maritime history at Sea Education Association in Woods Hole Massachusetts and of museum studies at Harvard University.