The Franciscan Conspiracy is set against the chaotic backdrop of thirteenth-century Italy, a time when the extreme poverty of religious zealots clashed with the burgeoning prosperity of merchants, the monastic orders, and secular prelates. Father Leo, closest companion of their Order's founder, refuses to take his secrets with him to the grave. In a farewell message, Fra Leo launches the young hermit friar Conrad into a labyrinth whose every passage confronts his deepest fears — there to make sense of the bizarre and puzzling events that followed the death in 1226 of Francis of Assisi. The Franciscan Conspiracy is based on an actual event, the kidnapping and hiding of the remains of Saint Francis of Assisi at the instigation of the head of the Franciscan Order. The burial site was not discovered for 600 years. What Church-threatening secret were they hiding? Only now has The Franciscan Conspiracy finally been revealed. A historical mystery, John Sack researched the biographies written during the forty years following the death of St. Francis as well as the chronicles of the wandering friar Salimbene, who appears in the novel. The crusades and the various Church Councils described in the book refer to historical events. The popes and leaders of the Franciscan Order, as well as most of the friars in the story, are also based on real people.
Excerpt From the Book "Dio mio, sister! What have you done? This was a friar you killed." Conrad had removed the outer cloak. She saw the dead man wore a grey robe belted with a cord like their own. Knotted to the leather thong bunched at his throat was a crude wooden cross. "He tried to kill me." Her body drooped and her words were little more than a hoarse whisper. She hadn't the strength even to defend herself. The torch in her hand dipped until it burned just above the man's bald head and rigid, agonized features. "Padre! I know this one! I saw him this morning!" "In Gubbio?" "Yes. In the piazza. He stood at the back of the crowd with several of our Order. He had his hood off and I remember thinking he seemed to enjoy the cold." "But why attack us?"