Ten years ago, Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason wrote the mega bestseller The Rule of Four, a suspenseful tale about a group of Princeton roommates who solve a mystery hidden in an arcane Renaissance text. Caldwell is now back (sans Thomason) with The Fifth Gospel, a sparkling worth-the-wait religious thriller about family, the Shroud of Turin, a lost gospel, two brothers (Vatican priests serving during the end of Pope John Paul II's reign) and a murder.
Like The Name of the Rose, whose story took place in the confines of a monastery, this story is set within the 110 acres of Vatican City. The narrator is Father Alex Andreou, a widowed Eastern Catholic priest whose young son, Peter, lives with him in their small Vatican apartment. His brother, Simon, serves as a Roman Catholic diplomat-priest. The two hope that new archival research discovered by scholar Ugo Nogara--to be revealed at an exhibit in the Vatican--might make reconciliation between the two churches possible. Nogara's research concerns the Shroud's authenticity and the discovery of a fifth gospel, the Diatessaron. But all seems lost when Nogara is found murdered, and Father Alex, whose apartment is broken into the next day, becomes a suspect.
Caldwell creates a captivating stage for detective-priest Andreou to solve the crime while attempting to prove his innocence. Although it's slow to start, the novel soon punches all the right twisty buttons to lead readers on a fascinating and compelling religious adventure. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher