In this electrifying new novel Anne Rice tells a story every bit as mesmeric as her vampire tales, with a hero as seductive and ambivalent as the vampire Lestat. Azriel is a ghost who holds in his memory the long and troubled history of Western civilisation. Born almost 2500 years ago in Babylon, of a wealthy Jewish family in exile, Azriel is forced to take the role of a god for three days, paying for his people's freedom with an eternity of half-death, half-life. Caught for ever beween heaven and earth, his restless spirit can be called forth by whoever holds the casket of golden bones, and understands its arcane mystery. From the household of an ancient Greek philosopher to the deathbed of Alexander the Great, from the Mongolian steppes to a pogrom in fourteenthcentury Straßbourg, where Jews were made scapegoats for the Black Death, Azriel bears witness. And finally in the present he is summoned to witness and avenge a brutal murder on Fifth Avenue. The dead woman is Esther, step daughter of Gregory Belkin, fanatical, messianic leader of a worldwide cult, the Temple of the Mind. Belkin, as the world knows, is the son of Holocaust victims, but he has a secret history which brings Azriel's fate to his. Angel or demond, lured by Belkin's magnetism and riches, yet swayed by instincts he has almost forgotten, Azriel is caught up in a dizzyingly malevolent plot which could destabilise the world.