Mark Macpherson's second novel is available for download in pdf format. It is split into seven parts (Remember you can Right-Click to save the files to another location, Control-Click on Macs).

At the end of the world - Part One (pdf::size 108 KB)

At the end of the world - Part Two (pdf::size 260 KB)

At the end of the world - Part Three (pdf::size 168 KB)

At the end of the world - Part Four (pdf::size 328 KB)

At the end of the world - Part Five (pdf::size 212 KB)

At the end of the world - Part Six (pdf::size 108 KB)

At the end of the world - Part Seven (pdf::size 328 KB)

Longer synopsis, major themes and characters and relationships.

The novel is approximately 120,000 words.

Short Synopsis
The leader of the Lacandones, the direct descendant of the ancient Mayan kings, has a secret. It has been passed down for two thousand years from one leader to the next since the last god walked among the Mayans.

Yax K'in ("Yash K-in") needs the help from his old friend, archaeologist and anthropologist, Arthur Dawkins and from Michelle Bayles, the world's foremost Mayan glyph expert.

Retired geologist, Hamish Anderson, a friend of Arthur, has suffered the dual loss of his wife leaving him for a rival he thought beaten forty years previously, and the death of his son and his family. Only one teenage grandson, Jim, one of twin brothers, survives.

Hamish and Jim come on the expedition to the Lacandon village with Arthur and Michelle at the insistence of Yax K'in after he sees a photograph of Hamish and his grandsons.

The tomb of the last creator god to live among the Mayans, First Father, is discovered.

Thousands of years ago choices were made by First Father and those choices have consequences. The secret kept by Yax K'in and his ancestors determines the fate of those consequences.

Yax K'in turns to the only Lacandon left who is willing to keep the old ways, the rituals and the secret stories, his teenage daughter Pep'Em Ha. But would turning to someone so young, and a woman, destroy the ancient ways he wants to keep?

Pep'Em Ha pays an exacting price when the ancient secrets are finally revealed, as they must be.

The gods must, necessarily, return at the end of the world.