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Simon & Schuster
March 2015
On Sale: March 3, 2015
448 pages
ISBN: 1451694148
EAN: 9781451694147
Kindle: B00LD1S0NE
Hardcover / e-Book
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Suspense | Thriller | Historical
In Ian Caldwellโs masterful follow-up to his international sensation The Rule of Four, a lost gospel, a contentious relic, and a dying popeโs final wish converge to send two brothersโboth Vatican priestsโon an intellectual quest to untangle Christianityโs greatest historical mystery. Ten years ago, Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomasonโs The Rule of Four became a literary phenomenon that earned comparisons to Umberto Ecoโs The Name of the Rose and Donna Tarttโs The Secret History. Hailed as "ingenious...profoundly erudite" (The New York Times), "compulsively readable" (People), and "an exceptional piece of scholarship" (San Francisco Chronicle), it spent forty-nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold nearly two million copies in North America, and was translated into thirty-five languages around the world. Now, after a decade of painstaking primary research, Ian Caldwell returns with a new intellectual thriller that confirms his place among the most ambitious popular storytellers working today. In 2004, as Pope John Paul IIโs reign enters its twilight, a mysterious exhibit is under construction at the Vatican Museums. A week before it is scheduled to open, its curator is murdered at a clandestine meeting on the outskirts of Rome. The same night, a violent break-in rocks the home of the curatorโs research partner, Father Alex Andreou, a Greek Catholic priest who lives inside the Vatican with his five-year-old son. When the papal police fail to identify a suspect in either crime, Father Alex, desperate to keep his family safe, undertakes his own investigation. To find the killer he must reconstruct the dead curatorโs secret: what the four Christian gospelsโand a little-known, true-to- life fifth gospel known as the Diatessaronโreveal about the Churchโs most controversial holy relic. But just as he begins to understand the truth about his friendโs death and its consequences for the future of the worldโs two largest Christian Churches, Father Alex finds himself hunted down by someone with vested stakes in the exhibitโsomeone he must outwit to survive. At once a riveting literary thriller, a feast of biblical history and scholarship, and a moving family drama, The Fifth Gospel is a novel about the depths of sacrifice and the power of forgiveness. Rich, authentic, erudite, and emotionally searing, it satisfies on every level.
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