A Mystery for the Ages

About this book

A broke graduate student. An anonymous benefactor. And a research assignment that was never what itseemed.When Michael Lochanis loses his scholarship with ten days to find tuition, a stranger's letter offers him a lifeline: paid expenses, a stipend, and one task, research the connection between Saint Nicholas, Bethlehem, and anineteenth-century pastor who hid something extraordinary inside a Christmas carol.What begins as a simple academic project becomes a globe-spanning hunt. A clue in the margin of a journal leads to adesert monastery. A missing book points to the tomb of a saint. A scroll, taken at gunpoint, reveals a cipher thatsends Michael from the Vatican to the Tower of London to the cathedral at Cologne, chasing a treasure the WiseMen left behind two thousand years ago.But Michael is not the only one searching. A rival bloodline, descended from King Herod himself, has been huntingthe same treasure for centuries. The benefactor who hired him may not be who he claims. And the closer Michaelgets to the truth, the more he realizes: every ally may be an enemy, and every enemy may be a friend.To unlock the final secret, Michael will need more than scholarship. He will need to trust a heritage he never knewwas his, and accept that some things find you, whether or not you go looking for them.The Da Vinci Code meets the Nativity.Book One of The Christmas Quest Series.