Blood of the Lamb: A Novel of Secrets

The Historian meets The Da Vinci Code and Inferno in this exhilarating supernatural thriller set in Rome, where rival groups are searching for a document that holds a secret that could shatter the Catholic Church. Sam Cabot is the pseudonym of Carlos Dews and S.J. Rozan. This document, dear friend, will shatter the Church….. Reading these words in a letter in a dusty archive, Thomas Kelly is skeptical. The papers to which they refer have vanished, but Father Kelly, a Jesuit priest, doubts that anything could ever have had that power—until the Vatican suddenly calls him to Rome to begin a desperate search for that very document.Meanwhile, standing before a council of her people, Livia Pietro receives instructions: she must find a Jesuit priest who has recently arrived in Rome and join his search for a document that contains a secret so shocking it has the power to destroy not only the Catholic Church, but Livia’s people as well.As cryptic messages from the past throw Thomas and Livia into a treacherous world of art, religion, and conspiracy, they are pursued by those who would cross any line to obtain the document for themselves. Thomas and Livia must race to stop the chaos and destruction that the revelation of these secrets would create. Livia, though, has a secret of her own: She and her people are vampires.In a sprawling tapestry that combines the religious intrigue of Dan Brown with the otherworldly terror of Stephenie Meyer, Blood of the Lamb is an unforgettable journey into an unthinkable past.Praise for Blood of the Lamb"Wow. Blood of the Lamb is totally unlike any novel ever written about vampires or secret societies or Roman art mysteries or Vatican conspiracies. But Sam Cabot has combined all of these, in this refreshing potpourri that provides us surprising and wonderful insights into each—and at the same time, endless fun!" —Katherine Neville, New York Times bestselling author "You never quite catch your breath as the secrets unfold one at a time, all the while building to a first class conclusion. History, secrets, conspiracies, adventure. What more could you want from a thriller?" —Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author "A heady blend of Christian mythology and ecclesiastical reality, Blood of the Lamb is an intricate puzzle of a novel—intensely researched, deeply spiritual, and profoundly sacrilegious. I loved it." —F. Paul Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of the Repairman Jack series “Just when you thought vampires were so last year, Sam Cabot's Blood of the Lamb offers up a fresh, compelling history of the vampire. Like all great works in the genre, this one makes us think deeply about what it really means to be human. Hope there will be more in this vein!” —Leslie S. Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Dracula "Audacious." —Publishers Weekly “Firmly located in Dan Brown territory, this religious-themed thriller combines historical mystery with modern-day intrigue…One thing is crystal clear: [Dews and Rozan have] produced a first-rate thriller.” –Booklist “I literally could NOT put this book down once I started it! It is more of a roller coaster read than a Dan Brown novel, with more twists and historical references to keep any history buff running a Google search screen in the background as they are reading it!... This book is just so DIFFERENT- it offers intellect and scientific reasoning, combined with myth and produces a book in the vein of a Dan Brown book, but enhanced as it were, to a different level, where childish fantasies do not apply, and where the search for the great unknown exits.” –BlessTheirHeartsMom.blogspot.com “A beautiful contribution to the mystery, paranormal and thriller genre. It’s an imaginative and historical take on an age old topic…Bravo, bravo.” – BitchesWithBooks.com

From Publishers Weekly

Under the Cabot pseudonym, Edgar-winner S.J. Rozan (Ghost Hero and 10 other Lydia Chin/Bill Smith novels) teams with academic Carlos Dews on this audacious supernatural religious thriller. Lorenzo Cardinal Cossa, who has just been named Vatican archivist and librarian, asks Fr. Thomas Kelly, an American Jesuit, to come to Rome. Cossa needs Kelly's help in locating a missing agreement, the Concordat, signed by Pope Martin V in 1431. The archivist has good reason to fear that the document's public disclosure would seriously damage the Catholic Church, since the Concordat was made, as the authors reveal early on, with the Godless Noantri, otherwise known as vampires. This novel concept sets the book apart from all the other Da Vinci Code imitations, and the inevitable human-vampire romance will appeal to the Twilight crowd, but the deeper secret may strike many readers as too over-the-top, if not actually silly. Agent: Steve Axelrod, Axelrod Agency. (Aug.)

From Booklist

Thomas Kelly, an American Jesuit priest living in Rome, is asked to locate a vital document stolen from the Vatican more than a century ago. Meanwhile Livia Pietro, an Italian art historian, is also looking for the document, but for darker, more frightening reasons. Firmly located in Dan Brown territory, this religious-themed thriller combines historical mystery with modern-day intrigue. The book has a pair of unlikely heroes, and the missing document itself is established as having the power to rock the Vatican to its core. The author’s name is a pseudonym for the writing team of Carlos Dews, a university professor living in Rome, and veteran thriller author S. J. Rozan. It’s tempting to speculate that the idea for the book came from Dews and the actual writing from Rozan, but that might be a simplistic interpretation of their partnership. However they shared the workload, one thing is crystal clear: they’ve produced a first-rate thriller. --David Pitt

and at the same time, endless fun!"

"Wow. Blood of the Lamb is totally unlike any novel ever written about vampires or secret societies or Roman art mysteries or Vatican conspiracies. But Sam Cabot has combined all of these, in this refreshing potpourri that provides us surprising and wonderful insights into each

Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author

"You never quite catch your breath as the secrets unfold one at a time, all the while building to a first class conclusion. History, secrets, conspiracies, adventure. What more could you want from a thriller?"

Leslie S. Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Dracula

“Just when you thought vampires were so last year, Sam Cabot's Blood of the Lamb offers up a fresh, compelling history of the vampire. Like all great works in the genre, this one makes us think deeply about what it really means to be human. Hope there will be more in this vein!”

intensely researched, deeply spiritual, and profoundly sacrilegious. I loved it."

"A heady blend of Christian mythology and ecclesiastical reality, Blood of the Lamb is an intricate puzzle of a novel

Publishers Weekly

"Audacious."

and a story

“Featuring two of my favorite characters in crime fiction, Bill Smith and Lydia Chin, Winter and Night is a chilling and compelling look at the dark roots of violence among American teens. It is the most intense and topical work from one of the finest crime writers today. This is a writer

Campo de’ Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, and the Roman Forum

“Sam Cabot”) Blood of the Lamb is inextricably linked to place and faith; a particular place and faith of all sorts. Carlos says: I was lucky enough, almost six years ago now, to land a job as chair of English at an American liberal arts college in Rome, Italy. The small campus is in the trendy neighborhood of Trastevere, tucked into a bend of the Tiber River, just downstream from the Vatican and across the river from all the sites tourists in Rome must see. To avoid the legendarily long Roman commutes and tangles with the frequent transit strikes, I decided to live in Trastevere and walk to work. I soon began to explore the neighborhood (not to mention the other splendors of Rome

about the real reason why the church was built, who commissioned the work of art, or what they actually signified. Living in Rome has taught me that things rarely are as they seem. There is always a story beneath the surface, or at least a parallel story to an accepted public explanation. At the same time, as an outsider unfamiliar with the particular rituals and articles of faith of the Catholic Church, I found much of what I was learning and seeing firsthand to be no less fantastic than supernatural fiction. Drinking blood, eating flesh, and gaining eternal life. It is impossible to live in the center of Rome without, even against one’s will or at least one’s inclination, considering how faith, in particular Roman Catholic faith, shapes the environment of the Eternal City. During the Easter season a couple of years after I arrived in Rome, as I walked down the narrow cobblestoned street from the Ponte Sisto bridge to my apartment near the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, I was struck with the idea that it might be easy to provide alternative or parallel stories to explain many of the things in my Roman neighborhood

“this is the sculpture of a saint, made using her incorrupt body as the model, thirteen hundred years after her death!” Each of these places and works of art seemed to come with a story. But beyond the straightforward historical explanations of their creation there were often other, usually much more intriguing, stories

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

All were assembled, silent, waiting: the twelve Counsellors sitting in rows right and left, and between them the Ponti¬fex, whose dark gaze made Livia uneasy even when she encountered him in the most casual of circumstances. Here, in the hush of stones and skeletons, it was all she could do not to squirm. She stood silent; it was protocol that the Pon¬tifex should speak first, though in truth Livia could not, at that moment, have spoken at all. A shuddering conflict had enveloped her, familiar from her first Summoning. Like all Noantri, Livia felt an immediate comfort, a sense of grateful belonging, in a group of her own people. It was physical and instantaneous, a calling of blood to blood. The relief of it had flooded around her when she walked into the crypt. But here, it was illusion. These black-robed Counsellors were not her friends. Standing before them for the first time, she’d sensed individual flashes of sympathy behind the unanimous disapproval. This time, though she didn’t yet know why she was here, nothing but anger filled the dank air.

About the Author

Sam Cabot is the pseudonym of Carlos Dews and S.J. Rozan.Carlos Dews is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at John Cabot University where he directs the Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation. He lives in Rome, Italy.S.J. Rozan is author of many critically acclaimed novels and short stories which have won crime fiction's greatest honors, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero awards. Born and raised in the Bronx, Rozan now lives in lower Manhattan.

Reviews

News