Christian Trilogy

The price of immortality ... Two thousand years ago, there lived a man who sold some valuable information for a fee of thirty silver coins. His name was Judas Iscariot and he is no longer with us. The coins, however, still exist-and still hold an elusive power over all who claim them ... Like Andrew Vanbergen, whose attempts at innkeeping bring in stranger business than he ever expected. And Aunt Naomi, whose most prized family heirloom is a silver spoon-with a curiously ancient-looking engraving. And especially old Mr. Pennyman, who is only five silver coins short of immortality ...

Howard Barton came to Mendocino in search of a folded scrap of paper. Not just any old scrap of paper, but one bearing what might be a sketch by the legendary Japanese artist, Hoku-sai. But Howard, unfortunately, is not the only one who wants the sketch ... There's old Heloise Lamey, whose lush and noxious garden is watered with blood, ink, and stranger substances. And the enigmatic Mr. Jimmers, whose workshop holds a bizarre invention designed to raise the dead. Even Howard's Uncle Roy, a builder of haunted houses and founder of The Museum of Modern Mysteries, has an interest in the sketch. In Northern California, nothing is what it appears, but everything is connected-Howard is led to a mysterious private war between secret, underground societies. Now Howard just needs to figure whose side he's on in the quest for the Paper Grail.

In the dead of night, a man climbs the tower of St. Anthony's Church, driven by a compulsive urge to silence the bells. In a deserted alley, a seemingly random victim is consumed by a torrent a flames. And in the deceptive light of day, a mail-order businessman named Walt Stebbins receives a bizarre artifact-a glass jar containing the preserved body of a bluebird. Things like this don't usually happen in a town like Orange, California. Ordinary people don't expect to face evil-real evil-in their backyards. But as Walt unravels the mystery of the bird in the jar, he learns that the battle between good and evil is taking place every day ...