The Sacred Blood » (Bargain)

Michael Byrnes attended Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey, and earned his graduate degree in business administration at Rutgers. Byrnes lives in Florida with his wife, Caroline, and daughters, Vivian and Camille.

The bones were just the beginning . . .

When American geneticist Charlotte Hennesey examined what she believed were the remains of Jesus, the Vatican buried her discovery. But the DNA Charlotte extracted from the sacred bones and injected into her own body has eliminated every trace of the cancer that was devouring her from within. And it has given her the power to perform medical miracles.

Now wheels have been set in motion that will have cataclysmic consequences for the volatile Middle East and all humankind. A two-thousand-year-old destiny is about to be fulfilled—resulting in the brazen kidnapping of Charlotte Hennesey, and ensnaring Israeli archaeologist Amit Mizrachi and noted Egyptologist Julie LeRoux in an ancient mystery centered around the world's most powerful relic. As zealots plot to rip the Holy Land asunder, the race begins to avert the unthinkable—for the armies gathering to meet on the hills of Meggido can mean only one thing: Armageddon!

Publishers Weekly

Jesus Christ's mortal remains turned up in a secret crypt below Jerusalem's Temple Mount in Byrnes's 2007 debut, The Sacred Bones. Now DNA extracted from those remains cures geneticist Charlotte Hennessy of cancer in this equally outlandish sequel. Assassins track Hennessy to Phoenix, Ariz., where they kill her boss and significant other, Evan Aldrich. Hennessy and her ally, Fr. Patrick Donovan, struggle to survive as they attempt to foil the schemes of a motley assortment of villains in search of the now missing Jesus relics, notably American-born Rabbi Aaron Cohen. Another duo, Israeli archeologist Amit Mizrachi and his romantic interest, Egyptologist Julie LeRoux, also attract Cohen's unwelcome attention. A formulaic plot, which includes abduction and the threat of sexual violence, builds to a denouement that will be familiar to viewers of the first Indiana Jones movie. (Apr.)

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