The Return of Merlin

New York, NY, U.S.A.: Ballantine Books, 1996. Trade Paperback. Fine. First Edition, 2nd Printing. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. The author of the million-copy best-seller Ageless Body, Timeless Mind emerges as a powerful new force in fiction with a luminously written novel about the final act of the Arthurian legend playing out in modern England. The Return of Merlin is a brilliantly realized narrative that begins in Arthurian times and jumps boldly to our own 20th-century dark age of war, pollution, predation, and hatred--with a message of hope. When two young constables, Arthur Callum and Katy Kilbride, discover a body in a roadside ditch outside a small industrial town in Somerset, England, they set off a series of disturbing phenomena that grow to plague the entire countryside. After the body disappears and other people are reported missing, Arthur and Katy's inquiries lead them to a strange, mazelike grove and a stone that opens a doorway to the past, tearing open the fabric of time. Along with Tommy and Sis, two brave schoolboys from St. Justin's; Sir Derek Rees, a renowned scholar of Arthurian lore; and a group of town misfits, Arthur and Katy find themselves embroiled in a deadly wizard's game that began twelve centuries earlier. For the fall of Camelot was not the end of a legend: In his wisdom, Merlin had anticipated the murder of King Arthur and his knights at the hands of Mordred, the royal bastard. Like evil seeds, Mordred lay down spells that remained dormant until now, the brink of the third millennium. By using powers that transcend time, Mordred can reach into the present. Soon the forces marshaled by these two wizards will clash again and the outcome will transform all of humanity. 422 pages. Bookstore sticker on lower right corner of Ffep..