Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Sign of the Cross
    Sign of the Cross
    Sign of the Cross
    Audiobook15 hours

    Sign of the Cross

    Written by Chris Kuzneski

    Narrated by Dick Hill

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    On a Danish shore, a Vatican priest is found—hanging on a cross. The next day, the same crime is repeated…this time in Asia and Africa. Meanwhile, deep in the legendary catacombs near Orvieto, Italy, an archeologist unearths a scroll dating back two thousand years, revealing secrets that could rock the foundations of Christianity. Its discovery makes him the most wanted criminal in all of Europe. But his most dangerous enemies operate outside the law of man...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 1, 2009
    ISBN9781423386612
    Sign of the Cross
    Author

    Chris Kuzneski

    Chris Kuzneski is the international bestselling author of The Lost Throne, Sword of God, Sign of the Cross, and The Plantation. His thrillers have been published in more than twenty languages and are sold in more than forty countries. Kuzneski, who grew up in Pennsylvania, now lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

    Related to Sign of the Cross

    Titles in the series (5)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Thrillers For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What Scientists Found Trapped In A Diamond: A Type Of Ice Not Known On Earth

      Mar 9, 2018

      Trapped in the rigid structure of diamonds formed deep in the Earth's crust, scientists have discovered a form of water ice that was not previously known to occur naturally on our planet. The finding, published Thursday in Science, represents the fir

      3 min read

    • Article

      Right Place Wrong Time

      Dec 10, 2017

      Right Place Wrong Time
      4 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2022

      1. Here there’s no rainy season.Sun scalds my forehead,yet the pool is empty. Beside it,a toppled table, its glass surface shattered.The asphalt is too hot for bare feet. 2. Far away: white hillocksand white dunes under a deepblue sky. Swirling winds

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tears in Provence

      Jun 2, 2021

      Reader, I realised the dream. And may I give you a warning: DON’T. For 20 years, I laboured in London and New York, manufacturing TV ads. I crammed gourmet food into the mouths of greedy, demanding clients with high anxiety pumping through their vein

      3 min read

    • Article

      Roger’S PROFANISAURUS

      Aug 4, 2022

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk air fryer 1. n. Device for making chips that won’t fur up your arteries. 2. n. A highcalorie food’s ghost exorcised from the premises of one who enjoys an unusually high-fat diet. Alan Sugar’s beard n. A straggly, threadbare f

      6 min read

    • Article

      In Love And War

      Jun 10, 2021

      April 1943 - Krakow, Poland Irena was bent over her needlework, stitching the frayed seam of her skirt when she heard a single gunshot ring out. She jerked and then scowled. After four years of war, she ought to be used to it. Why, the other night a

      11 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Jan 5, 2022

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS
      5 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Jun 22, 2023

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS
      7 min read

    • Article

      La Otra Historia

      Jun 30, 2022

      La Otra Historia
      14 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Iľja Rákoš

      Dec 12, 2021

      As long as there are authors, translators, publishers large or small committed to the deliberate word deliberately committed to the page, and so many who still need those words on pages, legal or illegal, right, left, or center, we’ll find our feet a

      8 min read

    • Article

      Part 1 WHEN FISH FLY: The Revolt on the Slave Ship Creole

      Jan 1, 2022

      Part 1 WHEN FISH FLY: The Revolt on the Slave Ship Creole
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Story

      Oct 24, 2018

      Ghost Story
      17 min read

    • Article

      In the Name of Notre Dame

      Apr 17, 2019

      In the Name of Notre Dame
      11 min read

    • Article

      Roger's PROFANISAURUS

      Nov 19, 2020

      Roger's PROFANISAURUS
      8 min read

    • Article

      We All Live in Uncertain

      Jul 30, 2020

      “Think of Caddo as a maze of lakes within lakes,” says John Winn, proprietor of Caddo Outback Tours, as the two of us settle into a small Go-Devil boat roped to a dock in Uncertain, on the border of northern Louisiana. For two decades, Winn has given

      6 min read

    • Article

      Sas Great Escapes

      Jul 8, 2021

      Sas Great Escapes
      12 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Dec 1, 2023

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Dec 1, 2023

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Tale Of Two Explorers

      Sep 24, 2019

      A Tale Of Two Explorers
      4 min read

    • Article

      Frank’s Fable

      Mar 18, 2021

      Frank’s Fable
      4 min read

    • Article

      On Bended Knee

      Nov 2, 2022

      On Bended Knee
      2 min read

    • Article

      Yarning About Sea Monsters

      Jul 6, 2023

      Marsali Taylor sails an Offshore 8M, Karima S. She’s a dinghy instructor and author of The Shetland Sailing Mysteries starring liveaboard sleuth, Cass Lynch. Sea stories, I mean. There’s nothing like a lamp-lit cabin after a long day’s sail to a new

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sign of the Cross

    3.5/5

    131 ratings12 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This story was fast-paced, full of action, mystery, history and a fun entertaining read. Payne and Jones are great characters and add a great deal to the story. Looking forward to my next adventure with these two wonderful characters.
    • 5/5
      Excellent plot, intriguing archaeological possibilities and enough chases to keep you wide awake!
    • 2/5
      Sometimes when I'm reading a book I'm not sure if I'm meant to be excited, enrapt, or cringing. It's taken me a few days to arrive at a decision and I've decided to cringe.

      Sign of the Cross is a fast paced action adventure novel in the vein of Steve Berry, James Rollins, or that guy who wrote the book that annoyed the Pope; what was his name? In the second instalment of Payne and Jones' adventures, the mercenaries are hired to hunt down two archaeologists who have uncovered a secret that could bring down the Catholic Church. Meanwhile a team of killers are reenacting the crucifixion, because, you know, that's what Jesus would have wanted. With everyone hunting for Payne, Jones and their pet archaeologists, and a few murderers running around, who at the Vatican knows and who wants the secret, and do they want it for power or payback?

      This is the first Chris Kuzneski book I've read, and it will be my last. Now that I've had time to reflect upon the story and writing, I'm actually surprised I finished the novel. Kuzneski came up in my recommendations because he writes fast paced adventure novels like two of my favourite authors, the previously mentioned Berry and Rollins. Unlike those two, however, Kuzneski takes all of the same ingredients for a novel, mixes them in an overly large bowl (the book is over 400 pages), and manages to make gruel.

      The novel started well, but I noticed myself cringing at the end of the chapters with the ham-fisted foreshadowing. This continued until I would start preemptively cringing as I reached the end of each chapter. Seriously, it felt like the end of every scene or chapter Kuzneski would have a line like "Little did they know that only two of them would return." But wait, there is more. There is an underlying casual sexism and racism to the novel that is unintentional, but jarring. An early scene has one of the characters, Nick Dial, surprised to see a woman Interpol agent. Not that Nick was sexist, women could be just as good as men....... No, Nick explained that he wasn't sexist, but some of his bosses weren't as open minded. Yeah. I'm not sexist, but....

      These two points are just the major problems I had with the writing of this novel. And it is mainly the writing that lets this book down. In the example I just mentioned, there are many ways authors could discuss Nick's surprise at seeing a woman on the job. But the way the scene was written it sounded like the author was desperately trying to sound progressive and PC. This poor writing happened throughout the book, which actually has a reasonable plot, a bit of humour, and great pacing. Some readers may not notice these issues, although I note many reviews complain about the foreshadowing, and it was entertaining enough for me to finish reading, so others may find this enjoyable. But I would recommend reading anything by Steve Berry or James Rollins instead.
    • 1/5
      Dreadful. Very thin story line, with quite a surprisingly childish approach to writing.
    • 4/5
      If you enjoyed Dan Brown's DaVinci Code & Angels & Demons, you will like this book. It starts with some mysterious person crucifying Vatican priests on 3 different continents, & it goes from there on a thrill ride that includes secrets that could turn the Catholic church on it's ear. Great read, it hooks you from the first paragraph
    • 3/5
      I've read the first two books in this series and I think we have a pretty good writer here but he uses, to my way of thinking, gimmicky plots to carry his books. I think he would be a fine writer without the gimmicks and I hope that as I go through the series, the plots become less gimmicky.

      As for this book in particular, it was another in the long life of Vatican-secrecy plots. They seem very common these days. While I think he's a skilled writer, I found many of the comments about the what scholars know, believe, say, hide, etc. to be completely opposite to what I know about biblical scholars. When he had a priest misquote scripture, I realized that the research and scholarship was from very questionable sources, while it seems that he would like to make it seem like at least semi-serious research. In the epilogue, he states that he won't say what's fictional and what's real. I assume that's because it's 99.9 percent fiction.

      I will read more of this series because I do believe that he has the ability to write a very good thriller but I'm hoping the plots become less gimmicky.
    • 3/5
      This is the third book I have read by this author. The previous two occur after this story takes place. I was worried that my knowledge of the main character's future would ruin aspect of this book but it did not. Overall I found this book to be good for the beach or a long plane ride but it was definitely not a book that kept me up at night because I had to know what happened next. I really the enjoyed the interactions between the main characters Payne and Jones. It's one of the reasons I continue to read the series. In this book, I found the action scenes had potential but ended up lacking. I also found the storyline centering on the secret beginnings of Christianity to have potential but ultimately lacking. This book is in the style of Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" but not done as well. I would recommend this book as mindless entertainment, if you can get past what I feel to be an overdone topic.
    • 5/5
      I originally picked this up an the airport expecting it to be usual generic Dan Brown copy however I ended up being pleasantly surprised. True it is very formulaic. The storyline never rises above the standard Christian conspiracy that has been reproduced countless times after the success of Dan Brown, and the characters are pretty stereotypical. However Kuzneski succeeds where others have failed due to his great sense of pacing. The book moves at breakneck speed and I found myself desperate to find out what happens next. Kuzneski also doesn't take himself too seriously and includes several injokes about Dan Brown and the genre in which he is writing. True the attempts at humour don't always hit the mark., I found the wise-cracks between the two protagonists were sometimes overdone, however for the most part this book is great fun.
    • 5/5
      loved this book!
    • 1/5
      Have you ever had that experience that occurs when people find out that you're a reader and so the next time they see you, they're clutching a book in hand that they force upon you and insist that you read it? They look so damn hopeful that you, too, will love it that you just can't say no. That's how I came upon this little turd-nugget of a book. This is one of the most pitifully written books I've ever read. Every other chapter ends with a statement like, "Little did he know that in two hours, he would be dead" or "Little did she know that she held in her hands a secret that could destroy history." Gee, foreshadow much? It reads as though it was written by a testosterone fueled 13 year old boy who just can't stuff a story with enough oozing blood, explosions, high tech weaponry, fast cars, and macho banter between two special ops characters. Now mind you, I'm all for the mindless bit of entertaining fluff as long as it's well written. However, this is so terribly written that I found myself groaning aloud and longing to fling it across the room. But I couldn't, because I have to return it and, with a forced smile, say it was entertaining and that, no, I have far too many books to read, so I really can't accept another.
    • 3/5
      Sign of the Cross is an easy read. The characters are paper thin as is the mysteries presented within, however, despite these prominent flaws it remains just interesting enough to hold your attention. Two of the protagonists appeared in Kuzneski's previous book, The Plantation, but this is a standalone novel and previous reading is not required. The style of narrative is occasionally distracting, with 'cliffhanger' type foreboding frequently used at the chapter ends, which were completely unnecessary. Overall it's an average entry in to the genre that Dan Brown has popularised and although it's over 600 pages it's not a laborious read. Not to be added as High Priority to your Wish List, yet not to be entirely shunned either.
    • 3/5
      Not the best written book and certainly not literary this book keeps you turning pages as each chapter ends with the next clue. Short, fun read.