The Empire of Death is an intricate
love story that's as delicately interwoven as the bones of the Paris
catacombs. Martin Maxwell lives a comfortable life teaching high
school in Toronto. His work is an unremarkable routine that is broken
every three or four years when he is summoned to Paris as part of
a team dedicated to the reconstruction of the walls of human bones
that line the catacombs.
Paris holds many attractions for Martin – the cafés, the personalities,
the city itself, but most of all there are the bones, and the exquisite
and steadfast Calandra Smith – who could be the love of his life.
It's March 2004, and Martin is once again in Paris, but this time
things are different. A growing sense that something in Calandra
has changed, and the discovery of new white bones hidden amongst
the age-tanned bones of the ossuary, disrupt the comfortable routine
Martin has come to cherish.
As the pieces begin to fit into place, Martin learns that, of the
many secrets buried beneath the streets of Paris, murder might be
the easiest to keep.
