It starts off well – historian and ancient Aramaic language expert Theo Griepenkerl is touring a badly damaged museum in Iraq when a bomb explodes outside, killing the curator and other innocent bystanders. As he is hiding in the basement, he makes an amazing discovery – 2000-year-old papyrus scrolls that have fallen out of a statue shattered by the blast.

After smuggling them back home in his luggage, Theo discovers the Fifth Gospel written by Malchus, an enemy of Jesus Christ who was present during the betrayal by Judas and at the crucifixion.

His words portray a very different version of events to that which is currently accepted by mainstream Christianity, and when they are published Theo finds that his world is changed by more than the fortune earned from the book.

Like the ancient scribe Malchus, Theo is deeply flawed and at times a dislikeable character which can make it difficult for the reader to fully sympathise with his terror when he is kidnapped by two deranged protesters.

His eventual freedom is a confused and painful crawl through a dangerous neighbourhood in a stream-of-consciousness attempt to convince us that his own personal redemption may be at hand, but it just doesn’t read convincingly enough.

Faber may think the abrupt ending is clever and gives the reader something to think about, but instead it feels as though he ran of out steam and all the reader ends up thinking is that they’ve been short-changed.

Text Publishing Company, $22.95,