While attending a Catholic conference in the US to boost the faith in difficult times, Australian political journalist and ex seminarian Jack Duggan is made aware of a controversial codex written by a 4th century Syrian bishop. Only photographs of the codex are available, the original having gone missing soon after its discovery at the Palestinian monastery of Mar Saba. Within a few pages we are engaged in Duggan's struggle with his religious past, a past that furnished him with the expertise to translate the codex, but left him antagonistic to all things religious. From there we are carried into the thick of a story that reveals, step by step, what this ancient codex contains, and it contains not a few historical surprises. At once a kind of thriller, a romance and a slice of life, The Mar Saba Codex is a big story with many an unexpected twist that traverses the globe from Sydney to San Francisco, and from New York to Rome, reaching its grand climax in the old walled city of Jerusalem where equally belligerent forces strive for dominance.