Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Map of Bones

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Map of Bones

Interesting facts according to Rollins:

• The Vatican maintains a sophisticated intelligence-gathering operation, even employing full-time agents.
• Catholic canon law requires every chapel or church altar to enclose some form of relic within it. The Vatican maintains its own 'relics library,' a storehouse of filing cabinets, shelves, and drawers filled with bits of bone or spoonfuls of dust.
• The science behind this story is not fiction, but based on current research. The investigations center on a new form of solid matter that was recently discovered -- or rather re-discovered?
• He came up with the storyline for Map of Bones before The Da Vinci Code was published and decided to tell the story now because 'many thrillers, when collided with the Catholic Church or the Vatican, paint the Church, faith, and belief in a disparaging light. In Map of Bones, I sought to show the Church and its past in a manner that is both realistic and acknowledges some of the Vatican's corrupted past...'.

For more read the interview at BookBrowse....

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This "beyond the book article" relates to Map of Bones. It originally ran in June 2005 and has been updated for the May 2006 paperback edition. Go to magazine.