VEIL

A TECHNOLOGICAL THRILLER, SUSPENDED BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE...
Who covered up in 1751 the events involving the Alchemist Prince Raimondo Di Sangro?
What may link the creator of the mysterious Sansevero Chapel in Naples, and of his Veiled Christ? 
What may link him with the first human expedition to Mars?

A young engineer from ESA (the European Space Agency) and a brilliant girl engaged as a historian during an internship at the Vatican Library meet in the traffic of a busy, but still romantic Rome. Sergio is committed finalizing the environmental systems that will ensure clean air and water on board of the SkyRider, the first manned shuttle destined to reach Mars, while Sandra has to deal every day with the Rome of the '700s and the misdeeds done at that period by the Holy Inquisition. Two worlds really apart and as different as day and night can be suddenly collide on the eve of what will prove to be for both, even if for different reasons, a crucial moment in their lives. Pushing the two of them towards each other, it’s the shadow of Raymond di Sangro, seventh Prince of Sansevero, scientist and alchemist, but also the undisputed ruler of the scenes in Bourbon Naples in the eighteen century. 

Sandra’s research will actually lead both guys on the trail of this  multifaceted and fascinating character, and to the places he was the ancient protagonist of. Looking for the silver lining in a real judiciary puzzle buried under the sand since 1751, the historian will also take Sergio to the famous Chapel of San Severo, bringing him back to Naples, where he has attended University as well as to other places of his Campania,  just during the days when the researcher discovers that he too will have to leave very soon with the SkyRider. This departure to the red planet, so far in time and space for Sergio, suddenly becomes an imminent fact in his own life, and indirectly in the life of Sandra, who is quickly falling in love with him. But leaving seems to be an essential  choice for everyone: a must for Sergio in order not to waste the biggest opportunity of his whole professional life, and essential to European civilization, to prevent Chinese spacemen to land on Mars first and, by doing so, to definitely blow away the industrial and technological primacy of the Western world. If this would happen, China could really start to drive the social and cultural life of our planet, quickly turning the whole world into a gigantic Beijing. 

But before leaving, there is still something to be finalized in the European project of the shuttle, and the brightest minds of the twenty-first century don not yet succeed to find a safe enough and effective solution to this problem. Is it possible that the science of the Enlightenment Scholar Raymond di Sangro could help them find a totally unexpected solution? 

In a whirlwind of events, plot twists and bold mischief, the two guys manage to join their forces and come to terms with both matters, pushed by the irrepressible energy of their budding love and by their indomitable spirit of true researchers. Around them, dozens of characters built with precise and realistic traits, create a tangible and concrete universe that inexorably leads the readers to immerse themselves into the story at the point where they feel a part of it. Taken by the effervescent girls with whom Sandra shares her apartment in Rome, and involved by the collegiate atmosphere created by Sergio’s co-workers, the readers will actually enter the real--and busy-- world of the two researchers. And there they will meet many other characters who will remain etched in their mind for a long time, such as the fascinating figure of Doctor Fulcroy, unsinkable leader of the SkyRider project who, in spite of being more than seventy years of age, is able to keep up with his first line managers even if they are much younger than him. 

VEIL is therefore a novel that fascinates for the compelling plot of his stories, that it is full of mystery and action, but which basically tells us the life events of a couple of young researchers from our days.   

Because in the end, to use Sandra’s words, “things always go as they have to go...”