The Blood of the Lamb

Monteleone ( Fantasma ) gives the idea of genetic cloning a new twist in this apocalyptic thriller set in the final days of the 20th century. Within the first few pages, two extraordinary events occur. A Vatican priest doing special research for an ``old Jesuit'' is summarily executed by his employer immediately after delivering an unspecified item to him. Thirty years later, in the 1990s, Father Peter Careza, a parish priest in Brooklyn, is horrified when ``lightning blasts'' from his hands incinerate a murderous mugger. Summoned to the Vatican, the shaken Carenza discovers that his birth was the result of an incredible genetic experiment using one of the most famous religious artifacts in Christendom. The roller-coaster plot then involves biblical prophecy and the promise--or fear--of the millennium, and features a vicious clerical assassin and a beautiful American reporter. When Father Carenza's extraordinary powers turn out to include healing properties as well as death-dealing ones, he embarks on a journey across the heart of America and a bitter confrontation with organized religions, especially those of the electronic church. Is he a force of light, or of darkness? In building toward an answer, Monteleone has written a riveting story about evil done in the purported service of good. (July )