St. Peter's Bones

2011 Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year Award Winner A NOVEL OF THE PERSECUTED CHURCH IN IRAQ... The time is 846 AD. Rome is under siege. Before the Saracen armies sack the Vatican, Pope Leo IV calls on a sect of trusted warrior monks to evacuate from his palace the most sacred of holy relics, the bones of St. Peter, the "rock" on whom Christ said his church would be built. Now the secret has fallen into the hands of a radical Muslim insurgent group in modern-day Iraq, who plot to wipe out the monastery where for centuries the sacred relics have been stored, along with dark secrets from the earliest days of Islam. U.S. Special Forces operator Danny Wilkens is back, this time chasing Muslim insurgents in Iraq and a corrupt former CIA officer who is secretly in league with them. When Wilkens discovers pages of a mysterious text during the take down of an insurgent cell, he thinks it's some kind of code. But soon his Iraqi Christian translator, Yohannes ("Johnny") Yohanna enlightens him: the text is written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. And it tells the story of a legendary Christian monk who is said to have dictated portions of the Koran to the Prophet Mohammad in an effort to spread the Gospel into Arabia. "Kenneth Timmerman has wrought a wildly inventive and highly gripping thriller that encompasses the secret and long-hidden origins of Islam... That makes St. Peter's Bones more than just a great novel, although it is assuredly that as well: it is also an enlightening insight into today's increasingly conflict-ridden relationship between Islam and the Judeo-Christian/post-Christian West."
- Robert Spencer, editor of JihadWatch, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. "Timmerman's taboo-breaking thriller portrays authentically the politics and passions fueling the deadly persecution of Iraq's ancient Christian community: an unintended but ruinous by-product of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It's a powerful book America's political leadership on both the left and the right would prefer you not to read."
-Dr. John Eibner, CEO, Christian Solidarity International (CSI-USA) "Ken Timmerman's riveting tale is a story in urgent need of telling."
-Nina Shea, Commissioner, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Based on fact-finding missions by the author in Iraq and Jordan, as well as extensive historical research into the origins of Islam through original texts, St. Peter's Bones tells the story of Iraq's beleaguered Christian community through the joys and fears of one family, while exploring the ambiguities of America's continued presence in that country as deepening tensions between Kurds and Arabs that risk plunging Iraq into another civil war.


Genre: Thriller