A risk-avers gallery owner and his former lover, caught up in a scheme to clone Jesus Christ, must outwit a gauntlet of fanatical religious masterminds. Pitch: A Hitchcock-esque everyman gets swept up in a Da Vinci Code-like quixotic quest.

SYNOPSIS:

When David Greenberg receives a call from his long-lost love, Miriam Solomon, his heart shudders. Twenty years earlier, Miriam had run off to Israel with David’s best friend, Solly, a brilliant scientist. Now she tells David that Solly has committed suicide—and she needs David’s aid to acquire the one remaining nail from Jesus’ crucifixion, which has gone missing. But ruthless radicals of the world’s three major religions stand in their way.

Skeptical, but unable to resist Miriam’s charms, David agrees to help, but soon discovers that Miriam has told him one significant lie, and perhaps many more. How deep is her game? When David asks Miriam about a rumor that Jesus is alive, she promises David will meet the singular young boy. But what is Miriam’s true connection to the child? Is he her son? Or a “messianic-like” figure?

Meanwhile, kidnappings, torture and murders multiply, and the couple finds themselves pursued from Tel Aviv to London, Paris, and St. Louis. Who is the mysterious mastermind behind this bloody carnage—and what is his motivation? Is the killer an elusive Middle East jihadi? A henchman of a powerful American TV evangelist? Or one of their protectors, gone bad: the likable NFL-star-turned-missionary, or their tough Israeli security guardian?

David untangles the clue to where the nail is hidden using Bobby Fisher chess and ancient Kabbalah gematria. But with the relic in hand, their pursuers feel no restraint. Can David and Miriam survive and identify the murderer—or murderers? And will love conquer all—or has fate condemned them to live oceans apart?

Biotechnology, millennium religious movements, and human evolution collide in this cauldron boiling over with deeply existential ironies. What a mishegas!