Masello ’74’s Novel Combines World War II, Einstein, and the Supernatural

It is 1944, and World War II is still roiling Europe. Lucas Athan, the hero of Robert Masello ’74’€™s novel The Einstein Prophecy, has just returned to his post as an art history professor at Princeton after a stint as an army lieutenant. Sometimes it almost feels as if he never left — and then he remembers the black patch that now covers the spot where his left eye used to be, before he lost it in an accident on his last army mission. The Egyptian sarcophagus he was sent to recover is at Princeton for study, and Lucas starts to suspect that there might be more to it than initially appears. Archaeologist Simone Rashid arrives with cryptic warnings about the sarcophagus, which she claims to have discovered with her father. Then strange events involving Albert Einstein, who is Lucas’ neighbor, begin to occur. As Lucas and Simone work together to untangle the mystery, it becomes clear that their work has landed them in a struggle between good and unmitigated evil.

Suspense Magazine called the novel “a page-turner offering up a wealth of unforgettable action and intrigue stemming from the time in history where Hitler made his attempt to rule the world. This author has a great imagination, taking science from the ’40s and linking it to the supernatural.”€ Masello's nonfiction works include Robert’s Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know and A Friend in the Business: Honest Advice for Anyone Trying to Break into Television Writing.