Fans of Simon Toyne's Sanctus and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code will be gripped by this relentless religious conspiracy thriller.

The Vatican Cathedral is packed to the rafters as Pope Gregory XVII leads the congregation in mass. A cloaked stranger steps suddenly and fearlessly towards the altar and commands the wheelchair-bound Pope to stand.

He does.

The miracle stops the world in its tracks. Who is this stranger?

More miraculous events follow and as the Vatican retreats and closes its doors to the world, journalist Alexander Trecchio and police officer Gabriella Fierro set out to find an explanation that might calm an increasingly hysterical nation.

Because the question on everyone's lips is what the stranger's arrival might mean...and whether it finally heralds the End of Days.