In The Wolf and the Lamb, his third early-first-century mystery starring Gamaliel, Frederick Ramsay (Holy Smoke) boldly sets his story during the week of Jesus's crucifixion. Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Jerusalem, has been arrested for murder, and he calls upon Gamaliel, chief rabbi of the Sanhedrin (the highest council of Jewish law), to prove his innocence.
Gamaliel is reluctant to help the prefect, symbol of the Roman oppression, but he suspects that Pilate has been framed, and his innate honesty will not allow him to stand by as an innocent man is convicted. Gamaliel fears that his peers will scorn him as a collaborator, so he enlists the help of his friend Loukas, a physician, to help him wrap up the case quickly. Complicating matters for Gamaliel and Loukas are the other Roman officials, who are greedily eyeing the Prefect's position, and Caiaphas, the High Priest, who is obsessed with a mystical rabbi known as Yeshua (Jesus). Caiaphas wants Gamaliel to abandon Pilate to his fate, and help him convict Yeshua of blasphemy.
Ramsay walks a delicate line, balancing history and biblical tradition with intriguing fiction to produce a surprisingly believable alternate reason for Jesus's crucifixion. He creatively establishes a scenario that forces Pilate to free the murderer Barabbas, instead of Jesus, in order to save his own skin. The historical detail involved in Gamaliel's investigation makes the story entirely plausible, and will engage both mystery lovers and church-history buffs. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm