The Aten Cipher

For a century and a half, the Oriental Museum has kept its treasures above the River Wear. Nothing has ever been taken from it.On a cold November night, that changes. A three-thousand-year-old Egyptian stele vanishes from its case - no alarm raised, no lock forced, no camera that caught anything worth catching. Two guards were on duty the whole night. Neither can account for the hours in which it happened. Neither will use a word for what they felt.The police have a clean scene and a short list of people who knew what the stone was worth. Calder Voss has a different question: not who wanted the stele, but who understood it - because the more he learns about what was carved into it three thousand years ago, the less this looks like a theft at all.Durham in winter is quiet, white, and patient. So is the truth.The Aten Cipher is the second investigation in the Calder Voss Mysteries - a series set in the shadow of one of England's most ancient cities, where the past runs as deep as the river, and nothing is ever quite what it appears.