Description

A Korean industrialist, intent upon blackmailing a South American cardinal, hires an exiled American drug czar to steal the Shroud of Turin, the most revered religious relic in the Western world. The Korean, Li Ho Tae, wants mineral rights the cardinal has amassed that are essential to the production of space age and metallurgical products, a source of great wealth to his family for generations.
The Vatican, fearing a conspiracy and spiritual holy war is being waged surreptitiously against the Church, hires a Chicago police officer to assist in the recovery of the shroud. Detective Sergeant Tom Poole, wounded in a Miami shoot-out, becomes involved romantically with a nun he meets in the hospital who is leaving the Church because of a broken vow.
In the course of his investigation the detective discovers that the theft of the shroud is a diversionary tactic to conceal a plot to raid a secret underground vault in the Roman catacombs, which has been used since World War II to conceal millions of dollars worth of religious art and icons.
Set primarily in Italy and Lebanon during the early 1980s, the investigation takes Poole to Beirut where he falls into the hands of mercenaries. With the help of a young concubine Li Ho Tae has mutilated, Poole escapes, makes his way back to Beirut where he steals a Syrian MiG-23 in time to return to Rome. With the assistance of the ‘Sayaret Metkal,’ a group of Israeli commandos, Poole prevents the raid on the Vatican and aborts an attempt on the pope’s life.
My suspense thriller is 120,000 words in length and includes elements of religious and political history and spiritual mysteries. Because of the shroud’s controversy in contemporary religious history, the Mandylion has the potential to create an impact similar to the narrative non-fiction of the DaVinci Code.