Where did Jesus go from the age of 12 to 30?

The Secret Books is an epic adventure of a young man in the Crimea who is drawn out of his world by an eccentric female journalist, leading to a life as a Russian spy infiltrating anarchist circles and going undercover in British India where, seeking refuge from a confrontation with a British officer, he discovers a manuscript which holds the secret of Jesus' lost years.

But is this gospel true?

Marcel Theroux takes the reader on a spellbinding journey through 19th-century Paris, the Russian Empire, and the high plateau of India through a world of spies and double-cross, propaganda and revolutionary violence, lost love and anti-Semitism, and into a modern world where lies have the power of truth.

Based on real events, The Secret Books is at once a page-turning adventure, a meditation on the nature of belief, and an examination of the stories that humans are willing to kill and die for.