The Borgia Chalice

byDerek Wilson

The Borgia Chalice, gleaming and bejewelled, is the one of the most fabulous surviving treasures of the Renaissance. But it carries with it a darker aura, for legend has it that the notorious Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, could use this cup to poison his enemies, yet drink from it himself without harm. Art dealer Tim Lacy has no superstitious fear of the chalice's supposed powers, and nor do the six people who drink from it after Lacy buys it for a client. But within the hour, four of those people are dead - all of them art critics who mercilessly attacked the chalice's late owner, Gregor Santori, as a fraud. Yet Santori's son and daughter, who also drank from the cup, are unaffected. Revenge from beyond the grave? Family vendetta? An attempt to blacken the Santori name still further? Lacy takes a break from his business and sets out to unearth the truth in Rome, where revelations of sordid Vatican politics in the dog days of the papacy have remarkable contemporary echoes. And soon Lacy finds himself skittling around the art establishments of two continents in hot pursuit of a cunning and ruthless criminal running a muti-million dollar racket...Show more