Blood Symbols

Semi Finalist: BookLife Prize 2107 by Publishers Weekly. March 2012, in a vault beneath the Vatican's Penitentiary Office, home to the most protected secret of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a priest lies in a pool of his own blood, his lung pierced, his throat slit. Above him, the assailant scans the altar for a secret artifact. Not far off in the Secret Archives Library, thirty-one-year-old Jennifer Jaine, a lapsed PhD student in religious studies and now aspiring journalist from New York, inspects the Church's oldest copy of the Bible, the Codex Vaticanus. Driven by skepticism, Jennifer locks horns with the Cardinal Librarian. Her challenge to age-old Catholic traditions raises the cardinal's hackles. Failure looms as Jennifer takes flight. Defying boundaries, she breaks into the Vatican's underground bunker, and when she inadvertently uncovers the mysterious "Q" manuscript, the hypothesized source of the Synoptic Gospels that the Vatican fiercely denies to exist, she realizes the story could jump-start her career-if she does not die first. Thus, begins her journey: her flight from the oppressors who will go to any lengths to keep their deception from exposure; her abduction by a Turk accused of stealing the artefact and murdering the priest; her adventure when she helps exhume the long-buried remains of a celebrated biblical figure; and her discovery that the true power and authority of God purportedly invested in the Bishop of Rome, never extended beyond the borders of Turkey, but remained in the obscure biblical city of Antioch. With the Vatican's claim to the power and authority of God on the line, the implications are staggering.

Author: Izak Botha

Publisher: National Library Of South Africa

Publication Date: May 07, 2017

Number of Pages: 444 pages

Language: English

Binding: Paperback

ISBN-10: 0620747854

ISBN-13: 9780620747851