Map of Bones (Sigma Force, #2)

by James Rollins

Rachel had never understood the Church’s obsession with relics. It simply gave her the creeps. But Rome was chock-full of them. Some of the most spectacular and unusual were found here: Mary Magdalene’s foot, the vocal cords of Saint Anthony, the tongue of Saint John Nepomucene, the gallstones of Saint Clare. Even the entire body of Pope Saint Pius X lay up in St. Peter’s, encased in bronze. The most disturbing, though, was a relic preserved in a shrine in Calcata: the supposed foreskin of Jesus Christ.

FOR GRAY, churches at night always held a certain haunted edge.