Igor Bergler’s “Michelangelo’s Lie” sets new record: over 200,000 sold copies in 15 months

New record on the Romanian book market! “Michelangelo’s Lie”, the new novel by Igor Bergler has exceeded 200,000 copies sold in 15 months since its release.

Igor Bergler’s new thriller brings into the limelight again the brilliant professor Charles Baker, who must unravel (a little bit differently) a new world conspiracy. This time it is even more complex than the ones in the previous books: the biggest conspiracy in history – the invention and enforcement of Christianity.

As the Romanian author has already taught us, the book intertwines the real history with fictional elements so well that it is almost impossible to discern how much truth it holds and how much it is the writer’s intervention.

Bergler goes so far as to transfer in his new novel two of the of the most important foes in the dispute between the historical and the Mythicist stances on Jesus Christ’s existence. Therefore, the famous professor Bart Ehrman, probably the most important specialist in biblical criticism and Richard Carrier, the chief of the Mythicism school, become in the book Hermano Bartolo and Ricardo Carrera, priests, but also blood brothers.

Their talks transfer the real, very hot dispute in the US on this topic, even these days, into the Romanesque polemic, which becomes pretext for the action in “Michelangelo’s Lie”.

You will read terrible things about the history of Christianity, about Renaissance and you will find out what the greatest artist in the history, Michelangelo, discovered and why his secret was so well hidden for the past 500 years.

The third novel in the Charles Baker series follows the story of the assassination of several cardinals in Rome, which causes panic in the Eternal City. The Vatican is already gnawed by endless scandals of corruption and pedophilia, and Christianity is losing followers at a worrying pace. Behind these ritual executions, complicated by the killing of other cardinals in Mexico, is a terrifying conspiracy and a devastating secret for the Church, hidden in a document discovered by Michelangelo Buonarroti five hundred years ago. Counterclockwise, with a huge pressure on them, the Italian secret services have to solve a puzzle of information that they send to Professor Charles Baker, who is visiting his recently discovered relatives from the Visconti noble family in Palmanova. The American professor and Columbus Clay – the detective who never forgets anything – are caught in the nets of the biggest conspiracy in history, woven over two millennia by the Church. Michelangelo’s secret has such explosive potential that his mere revelation could turn all of Christendom to ashes.

Igor Bergler, director, screenwriter and film critic, doctor of management and professor of narratology, is the best-selling Romanian author of the last 30 years and the only one whose books have been published in over 30 countries by the largest groups editorials of the world – from Penguin Random House to Grupo Planeta.

His first novel, “The Lost Bible” published in 2015, set a record of 250,000 sold copies. It was outranked by the second novel, “Testament of Abraham” , with 300,000 sold copies.

Igor Bergler became an exclusive author of Litera Publishing House starting this year.

“Michelangelo’s Lie – The Cathedral on Fire” will be followed in 2023 by “Michelangelo’s Lie  – Profets and Sybils”.