Witness to the Crucifixion

Saint Paul, Private Eye!

It is written, in Matthew, that Jesus, on the cross, cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Was this all Jesus said? Who was present to hear him say anything at all? His disciples had fled in fear. Roman soldiers surrounded him. Was there a secret revealed at the Crucifixion — lost forever because there was no one to bear witness?

Paul, the “saint” who for ten years tormented the followers of Jesus, suffers visions of the Crucifixion. He is haunted by its secret. After fleeing near-death in Damascus, Paul begins a quest for one witness who can solve…

… the Golgotha murder mystery

Paul’s winding journey carries him far and wide throughout the Holy Land — and beyond. He faces constant danger from a host of enemies — from the King of Syria to the powerful brother of Jesus, known as James the Just.

Paul is beaten, mobbed, knifed, shipwrecked, cast away, bewitched and flung into prison. His only “friend” is a rogue apostle named Iscariot, whose death was “greatly exaggerated.”

Paul’s tortuous quest ends at last in Jerusalem, in the midnight gloom of Herod’s Great Temple. At last, Paul meets his witness and faces the most shocking revelation of his life.

David Benjamin is a lifelong storyteller. His fiction includes The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked and seven books under his new imprint, Last Kid Books: Three’s a Crowd, A Sunday Kind of Love, Almost Killed by a Train of Thought: Collected Essays, Summer of ’68, Skulduggery in the Latin Quarter, Black Dragon and Jailbait.  As a journalist, Benjamin has edited newspapers, published and edited several magazines, and authored SUMO: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Japan’s National Sport. In its first year, Benjamin’s imprint, Last Kid Books, won six independent press awards. His essays have appeared in publications that include the Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Examiner, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, EE Times and Common Dreams. Benjamin and his wife Junko Yoshida have been married for ages. They live sometimes in Madison, Wisconsin and sometimes in Paris.