The Cyrus Cylinder
by
Book Details
About the Book
Nicholas Hazel, the author of this novel, has served as a faculty member
and administrator in colleges and universities and is the author
of scholarly books and articles. In retirement, he has continued to
admire universities for their creation and dissemination of knowledge,
while at the same time realizing that they are also institutions
where political aspirations and tensions are played out and where
strong, even violent, human passions can rage underneath the surface
of the impartial searching for the truth. He is fascinated by the ways
in which history can impinge on the present through our interpretations
and reconstructions—or deliberate distortions—of what once
occurred.
Nicholas Hazel has spun this yarn around an ancient politically motivated
artifact, the Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed in 539 BCE, which
also in recent years has been used for political purposes. In this story,
it becomes the catalyst for contemporary international intrigue and
also for purely personal settling of scores. During a visit to the United
States to participate in the centennial celebration of a higher education
association, a descendent and namesake of King Cyrus, now the
chancellor of the University of Tehran, confronts—and is confronted
by—what happened twenty years ago as well as what is happening
today.
About the Author
Nicholas Hazel is the author of this mystery. He has taught at major universities and has written scholarly books and articles. He is now enjoying philosophizing about life and writing about people and events conjured up in his mind by the magnificent Santa Catalina Mountains that loom above him, by the vast Tucson Valley that stretches below him, and by the people and animals—and creatures out of myth—that inhabit the mountains, the valley, and especially, the mysterious Mountain Lion Canyon.