The Istanbul Puzzle

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Buried deep under Istanbul a secret is about to resurface with explosive consequences.

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The Istanbul Puzzle is selling fast. It’s the first in an “addictive” new series from Harper Collins.

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The Telegraph had this to say:  “A brisk plot…which draws the reader into a conspiratorial rapport…He’s come late to fiction, clearly he means to enjoy it.”

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The Lancashire Evening Post had this to say: “An impressive debut; well written, beautifully descriptive, and with a smart dialogue and a compelling air of menace throughout.”

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The Irish Independent had this to say: “Laurence O’Bryan’s compelling debut thriller combines plenty of stirring action with fascinating historical detail.”

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The latest in a series of ultra short book trailers:

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The blog post from this site I like most. An important scene from the book is set here:

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The Secrets of St Paul’s Cathedral

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Between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941 Nazi bombers dropped tens of thousands of tons of explosives on London. St. Paul’s Cathedral survived almost unscathed. In September 1940 alone, the Luftwaffe dropped 5,300 tons of high explosives on London in just 24 nights. The image of St. Paul’s rising above the smoke of a burning London is an enduring image of defiance for all those who fight fascism all over the world.

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St. Paul’s during the Blitz

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These facts are well known, as is the history of the present St. Paul’s, designed by Sir Christopher Wren following the destruction of the previous cathedral in the Great Fire of London in 1666. What interests me is the earlier secrets of St. Paul’s.

The present St. Paul’s is believed to be the fifth Christian church on the site since the first Saxon cathedral was built by Mellitus in 604. Before that the city spent a period sparsely occupied following the expulsion of the Roman civilian administration in 409 recorded by Zosimus. It is uncertain whether the site of St. Paul’s was a Christian site when Londinium was under Roman rule, but it may well have been, and it certainly would have been the site of a Roman temple before that.

According to long held tradition, a Roman temple to the goddess Diana once stood on Ludgate Hill at the site of St. Paul’s. Diana was the goddess of the hunt,  and also of the moon in Roman mythology. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, Diana, Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry.

As to what happened after the decline and fall of the Roman Empire archeologists have found evidence that a small number of wealthy families managed to maintain a Roman lifestyle until the middle of the 5th century, inhabiting villas in the southeastern corner of the city.  It was during this period that the legendary Arthur, the once and future king, drew the sword from the stone in the churchyard of St. Paul’s.

Diana of Versailles, 2nd c marble

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What existed there before the Roman’s chose the site for a temple is even harder to prove than any of the above. It is likely that a late iron age hill fort existed on the site and there may indeed have been an ancient grove there at one point. It is likely too that the site had cult or religious significance and that it was part of a network of Druidic sites. What the names of the gods or goddesses worshipped there were we can only guess. What rituals and sacrifices took place there we can only imagine.

According to Strabo, druids stabbed a victim with a sword and divined the future from his death spasms. According to Julius Caesar, the slaves and dependents of Celts of rank would be burnt along with the body of their master as part of his funerary rites. He also describes how they built wicker figures that were filled with living humans and then burned.

It is known too that Druids supervised such sacrifices. According to Cassius Dio, Boudica‘s forces impaled Roman captives during her rebellion against the Roman occupation, to the accompaniment of revelry and sacrifices in sacred groves. Boudicca burnt Londinium to the ground in AD 61 when she captured the city. Were defeated Roman centurions sacrificed on Ludgate Hill?

Whether any of these things happened is only wild conjecture. Whatever the truth, the mystical significance of St. Paul’s is hard to argue with. Two thousand years of sacrifice and prayer cannot be ignored.