The Blood Gospel: The Order of the Sanguines Series

In his first-ever collaboration, New York Times bestselling author James Rollins combines his skill for cutting-edge science and historical mystery with award-winning novelist Rebecca Cantrell's talent for haunting suspense and sensual atmosphere in a gothic tale about an ancient order and the hunt for a miraculous book known only as . . . The Blood Gospel

An earthquake in Masada, Israel, kills hundreds and reveals a tomb buried in the heart of the mountain. A trio of investigators—Sergeant Jordan Stone, a military forensic expert; Father Rhun Korza, a Vatican priest; and Dr. Erin Granger, a brilliant but disillusioned archaeologist—are sent to explore the macabre discovery, a subterranean temple holding the crucified body of a mummified girl.

But a brutal attack at the site sets the three on the run, thrusting them into a race to recover what was once preserved in the tomb's sarcophagus: a book rumored to have been written by Christ's own hand, a tome that is said to hold the secrets to His divinity. The enemy who hounds them is like no other, a force of ancient evil directed by a leader of impossible ambitions and incalculable cunning.

From crumbling tombs to splendorous churches, Erin and her two companions must confront a past that traces back thousands of years, to a time when ungodly beasts hunted the dark spaces of the world, to a moment in history when Christ made a miraculous offer, a pact of salvation for those who were damned for eternity.

Here is a novel that is explosive in its revelation of a secret history. Why do Catholic priests wear pectoral crosses? Why are they sworn to celibacy? Why do the monks hide their countenances under hoods? And why does Catholicism insist that the consecration of wine during Mass results in its transformation to Christ's own blood? The answers to all go back to a secret sect within the Vatican, one whispered as rumor but whose very existence was painted for all to see by Rembrandt himself, a shadowy order known simply as the Sanguines.

In the end, be warned: some books should never be found, never opened—until now.

"This ponderous collaboration between Rollins (Bloodline) and Cantrell (A City of Broken Glass) opens with an arresting prologue set in first-century Israel. As the Jewish defenders of Masada prepare for their mass suicide, their leader, Eleazar, ritually sacrifices a young girl in a cave below the mountain fortress. Flash forward to the present, when a cataclysmic explosion destroys Masada, leaving as sole survivor a boy whose cancer was cured by the toxic smoke that emanated from below the mountain. At the request of the Israeli government, archeologist Erin Granger joins forces with Sgt. Jordan Stone, an American Army Ranger, to find out what caused the catastrophe. Add a peculiar Catholic priest and a lost gospel to the attractive male-female team and its quest for the truth, and you have yet another religious thriller with a gimmick that fails to match that of The Da Vinci Code. Agents: (for Rollins) Russ Galen and Danny Baror; (for Cantrell) Elizabeth Evans, Mary Alice Kier, and Anna Cottle." Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

New York Times bestselling author James Rollins holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine and resides in the Sierra Nevada mountains. An avid spelunker and certified scuba enthusiast, he can often be found underground or underwater.

Rebecca Cantrell's Hannah Vogel thriller/mystery novels have won the Bruce Alexander and Macavity awards and been nominated for the Barry, APPY, RT Reviewers Choice, and Shriekfest Film Festival awards. She and her husband and son just left Hawaii's sunny shores for adventures in Berlin.