The Desiderata Stone

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Daisy Hayes was a sculptress, and blind since birth. In 1964 a French priest came to visit her at the collective studio in north London where she worked. He was fascinated by the impaired artist and told her about a program at the Vatican Museums, where people like her got an opportunity to study archaeological artifacts by touch.In AD 64 a blind masseuse working at the baths in Rome overheard some important men preparing to set fire to the city and seize power. When they found out that she knew too much, they had her arrested and tried to eliminate her. She decided she had to leave a message revealing the plot, and did everything she could to save her hide.So, as a Vatican intern 1900 years later, Daisy uncovered a mysterious message from antiquity: the Desiderata stone.

Nick Aaron

I was born in South Africa, where I went to a British-style boarding school. Later my family and I moved to Lausanne (Switzerland), and I continued my education in French. When I was twelve, I remember that I wrote some poetry, four poems about the seasons, admittedly a rather banal subject, except I'd recently moved from the tropics and the concept of four seasons was completely new to me. Not to mention the French language. Anyway, my teacher was so impressed he asked me to recite one of my poems in front of the whole class. After this first literary triumph, the writing bug never left me. Recently, after writing in Dutch and French for many years, I've gone back to the language of my South African childhood. Obviously the potential for a global readership was something of an incentive, and the idea of a blind sleuth was pretty exciting. Talk about a brainwave! The character of Daisy Hayes came to life in my mind almost wholly formed. The rest is history. Or just read the stories...