Edward Wilson 
The Sibyl’s Mistake 
A Novel

The Sibyls Mistake recounts the summer adventures of several sets of American visitors to southern Italy. Frank Bones, at the beginning of a one-year sabbatical from the University of California at Berkley, has come to Naples to bask in the beautiful city and to spend the year exploring. As his adventure unfolds, he meets an unusual
cast of characters, each with a different story and reason for being there at that particular time.

They have the ordinary adventures of travelers in foreign countries, but also most unusual ones, including being in costume onstage live at the San Carlo Opera and spending time on the volcanic island of Stromboli as it is destroyed by an eruption. They experience great loves and a strange, ritualistic, erotic murder.

Perhaps a now-obese Bacchus is among the mortals again, making life interestingdrawing each character into the story. Will
they survive the mystery that is about to unfold, and how will their lives be changed if they do?

About the author

Edward Wilson is a paleontologist who for thirty years was the curator of a huge fossil collection for a major museum in California. He mounted scientific expeditions to many places in the Western US, Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru, with numerous articles published in scientific journals. He presently lives in the southern California desert.