In 2004, as Pope John Paul II's health deteriorated and his reign entered its twilight, a mysterious exhibit was under construction at the Vatican Museum. A week before it is scheduled to open, its curator is murdered at a clandestine meeting on the outskirts of Rome. The same night, a violent break-in occurs at the home of the curator's research partner, Father Alex Andreou, a Greek Catholic priest who lives inside the Vatican with his five-year-old son.
Like all countries, the Vatican also has a State Department, which is called the Secretariat. Alex’s brother Simon, a Roman Catholic priest, works for the Secretariat and spends most of his time in Turkey. Simon returns to the Vatican frequently to report in on his diplomatic work and also to visit Alex and Peter.
At the beginning of the novel, Alex and Peter are awaiting such a visit from Simon. Along with the rest of the Vatican, they are also eagerly waiting for the opening of a new exhibit in the Vatican museum, an exhibit curated by a friend of Simon’s named Ugo Nogara.
On the night Simon is expected to arrive, he suddenly calls Alex and insists that Alex meet him at a secluded piece of church-owned property called Castel Gandolfo. When Alex arrives, his brother is covered in blood and kneels beside Ugo Nogara’s dead body.
Simon, who found Ugo's body, now faces canonical trial for his murder.
Apparently, Ugo believed the Shroud was brought to Byzantine’s Edessa after the Crucifixion, around A.D. 33, then stolen by Crusaders who brought home the Shroud and Diatessaron. Alex realises that Ugo’s discoveries will damage Pope John Paul’s initiatives to heal the Roman-Orthodox schism.
When the papal police fail to identify a suspect in both the murder and the break-in, Father Alex, desperate to keep his family safe, undertakes his own investigation.
To find the killer, he must reconstruct the dead curator's secret: what the four Christian gospels - and a little-known, true-to-life fifth gospel known as the Diatessaron - reveal about the Church's most controversial holy relic. But just as he begins to understand the truth about his friend's death and its consequences for the future of the world's two largest Christian Churches, Father Alex finds himself hunted down by someone with vested stakes in the exhibit - someone he must outwit to survive.
Everything in The Fifth Gospel rings true because Ian Caldwell spent 10 years researching and writing the novel. Caldwell knows his Vatican, and in his detailed descriptions of hidden gardens, underground car parks, piazzas, dark lanes, tunnels and corridors, conjures up a strange and alien world where hierarchy is all supreme; where secrets fester and multiply; where deals are spun behind closed doors, and a murderer may be on the loose.
The Fifth Gospel is an amazing and riveting thriller as well as a moving family drama about the depths of sacrifice and the power of forgiveness. Rich, authentic and emotionally searing, it will keep the readers glued to the pages till the end.
