Like Les Miserables on Steroids.

[Herbert]

The Craving and the Cross is a powerful and visionary novel created for the enlightened thinker. The villain is a depraved CEO who is driven by greed and lust. He is a Media mogul, the owner of Wolf News and several other businesses. He corrupts the values of his listeners, knowing their ignorance is good for business. He has a religious devotion to capital and a strange perversion for blood. He lives life lavishly. The CEO is a modern day monarch whose life has become diversion, perversion and excess. Beautiful and exotic women submit to his strange desires and men of wealth and power fear him. He appears to have it all but he hungers for more. He is aging and cannot accept the ultimate loss of his youth and his riches. He becomes obsessed with immortality and convinced that he is a Vampire. He uses his resources and wealth to find an ancient Wiseman. He tells the CEO the secret of eternal youth. It involves our hero.

Joe is a homeless man who many think of as a saint, and others think insane. He lives in an alley and eats out of garbage cans. He hears voices that compel him. His journey begins when the One Great Voice sends him on a mission to conquer evil and stop the bleeding. He is not sure what he must do until a brave and miraculous act and a media hungry for ratings propel Joe into the spotlight. His virtue and values inspire millions. He asks people to care for the poor and the sick, abandon intolerance, love justice and question authority. He inspires us to look inward for happiness and reject mindless consumption. Americans trust him and they see him as authentic.

The CEO despises Joe's liberal message; it is bad for business. He is also convinced that Joe holds the key to his immortality. He resolves to discredit him, capture him and hold him hostage until he gets what he wants. Joe's exotic entourage of followers protect him from harm while sharing with him their bizarre and heartwarming stories. Joe and his nemesis take us on a spellbinding adventure as they battle for the hearts and minds of America.