Gospel Truths (1992) is popular novelist J.G. Sandom’s third novel, and is the first Sandom novel I have read.  It is a gripping religious conspiracy thriller ala Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code, only published 11 years earlier and not nearly so gripping. 



In the novel London Police reopens the suspicious suicide case of a notorious banker, who had previously been caught in a financial scandal involving the Vatican Bank. Hard-on-his-luck London detective Nigel Lyman is given the assignment to investigate. He stands the chance to redeem himself professionally. Or is he being set up to fail miserably in order to conceal a secret that must remain under wraps. The trail leads to France where clues in the architecture of Notre Dame cathedrals in Amiens and Chartres lead to treasure, murderous secrets and a long buried gospel that threatens the religious basis for the Catholic Church.

Sound familiar? Religious conspiracies, long lost gospel texts, symbology, sensational architecture, international escapades and threats to world religion are common fare for thrillers nowadays. But as a reader they strike a chord for me, and I can’t seem to get enough of them. However, I try to stave off overload by moderating how many of these types of thrillers I read one after the other.

The atmosphere in Gospel Truths is dark and moody. Sandom is a creative wordsmith and his characters are compelling and likeable. Although it lacks the cinematic fast-edit cliff-hangers that Dan Brown creates so masterfully, it delivers a well crafted story with surprising twists. During the otherwise thrilling conclusion the dialogue becomes a bit awkward, I feel, but nevertheless I enjoyed the book.

Sandom has written a number of books since this one. But now after seventeen years he has published a sequel to this novel called The God Machine. One could surmise he is taking advantage of the wave of popularity for religious thrillers caused by DaVinci Code, in the same manner as this re-release of the novel was well-timed. Although I had some misgivings about the book’s conclusive pages l am looking forward to reading the sequel.

In the meantime I’ll be reading the first three of Andy McDermott’s humorous Nina Wilde-Eddie Chase thrillers. I recently posted my thoughts about his fourth novel The Covenant of Genesis (my review). Have you read any of Sandom’s novels? What did you think of them?