The Gospel of Judas: An American Betrayal

"Intelligent and clever .... and that's just the copyright page!"
"Attorney James Barrow has produced a legal thriller that considers issues of religion, ethics, parenting, aging and class status in modern America."
A secret meeting of Iraqi Mandaeans (a Gnostic group which believes John the Baptist, not Jesus Christ, is the true Messiah) is taking place in Australia. But the National Security Agency has the room bugged, and discovers that the Mandaeans have been hiding the only surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas in the safest place in the world: inside a bank vault in America. Desperate to destroy the document because of the political implications that would result from its publication, the NSA sets in motion a race for its recovery between a Gulf War veteran and an attorney that has befriended a powerful U.S. Senator. Grahamsville, the small town where the bank vault is located, has never forgotten the civil war, and the homecoming dance is the town's social event of the year. Both the veteran and the attorney become emotionally tied to the town, which is thrown into a panic when a schoolgirl goes missing. The two men discover the meaning of betrayal and salvation, as well as what it takes to be a saint in contemporary American society.