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In 1825, Czar Alexander I of Russia was buried—but many did not believe that the body in the coffin was that of the czar. Rather, they believed that he had slipped away in disguise and was walking the roads of Russia as a humble monk.
In 1975, a Russian named Yuri and his adolescent daughter Tanya approach a Soviet-era monastery in Leningrad, where an ancient tomb is opened—inside is the ancient, dessicated body of a monk—and a golden snuff box is removed and given to them. Tanya has a special gift—the Pravda: she can always recognize when someone is telling her the truth. But Soviet soldiers arrive, and Yuri is wounded and captured. Tanya flees.
Seven years later, Tanya is living in Colorado on a goat farm, but her ability as an investigator—aided by her Pravda gift—has already proven useful to the local sheriff. Then the Bible of the Bell Messenger comes into her life, and all of the mysteries and dangers of her past life erupt again: the golden snuff box, the identity of the monk in the coffin, the location and welfare of her father—and Tanya embarks on a world tour, partly fleeing, partly kidnapped, partly in an effort to solve the mysteries herself. Will Tanya, now in her late teens, be able to discern which of the new people who enter her life at his point can be trusted? Will she fulfill her destiny as the girl with the gift? And how will the Messenger’s Bible help her?
- Sales Rank: #2028965 in Books
- Published on: 2009-09-01
- Released on: 2009-09-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.44" h x .80" w x 5.50" l, .53 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
- ISBN13: 9781416549840
- Condition: USED - Very Good
- Notes: 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
About the Author
Robert Cornuke is the author of several books and an internationally recognized expert on biblical history and archaeological investigation. He has appeared on the History Channel, National Geographic Television, CBS, MSNBC, CBN, Fox, and TBN’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
Alton Gansky is the author of twenty novels and six nonfiction works. Previously a firefighter and an architect, he has spent twenty-two years in pulpit ministry.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
chapter 1
THE TOMB
JANUARY 22, 1975
MONASTERY OF THE HOLY MARTYRS, LENINGRAD, U.S.S.R.
YURI TUCKED HIS chin under his coat collar, trying to ward off the stabbing wind that gusted across the frozen Neva River. The street slithered with white rivulets of snow as Yuri and his young daughter stepped around an old man struggling to shovel a narrow pathway up the monastery steps. Fat snowflakes churning in the raw evening wind accumulated faster than the old man could scoop them away with his one good arm. A pinned-over coat sleeve covered the stump of his other arm. A row of ribbons and war medals hung from his chest.
As Yuri and his daughter approached, the man paused, squinted against an icy gust and leaned on the broken end of his shovel. "The monks have bread for the hungry," he said, then bent over again and scraped his flat, rusted spade over the hard-packed ice that covered the path.
Yuri and Tanya moved up the steps and arrived at a pair of locked, cedar-plank doors. Yuri pounded the wood with a leathergloved hand. A few moments later, the door creaked open, exposing bone-thin fingers that held a thick chunk of brown bread.
"We are not here for food," Yuri said.
A voice wafted from behind the door. "Then why do you come here?"
"I bring the girl. She has the gift."
"Gift?"
"The gift of the Pravda legend." Yuri waited for a response.
The thin fingers unfurled and the brown bread tumbled to the floor. The monastery door moved, widening the gap between it and the jamb.
Yuri and his young daughter stepped inside. A gray-bearded priest wearing a brown floor-length cassock, a black Byzantine klobuk perched upon his head, watched them with sunken eyes. A large, ornate, silver cross dangled from his neck. He lifted a flickering paraffin lamp and bowed in silent greeting. He then turned and pushed the heavy door shut against the invading blast of cold, and latched it with a large sliding bolt.
"I am sorry, but I usually tend to the welfare of men's souls -- not the digging up of their bodies, as we are about to do." His words flowed over blue lips and lingered in a vaporous mist.
Yuri had no desire for small talk. "We must hurry. The KGB is looking for the girl. We must conduct our business and leave quickly. I will take the girl across the border to Finland and escape the madness of this vile government."
The priest nodded, then waved for them to follow in the flickering glow of his light.
Two rats nibbled at the fallen chunk of bread on the floor, unconcerned as the priest limped past. Yuri and Tanya followed the priest's lamplight and descended a steep set of stone stairs. The cold seemed to follow, pushing from behind.
At the bottom of the stairs was an arched stone chamber, its floor covered in a thin veneer of frozen scum that crackled with each footfall. Green water dripped from the ceiling.
The priest pointed to a dark corner, where a large gray granite sarcophagus rested.
Yuri felt Tanya pull his coat sleeve as she released a muffled sob from under her woolen neck scarf. Chiseled on the face of the crypt, in old Russian Cyrillic, was the moss-encrusted name of Feodor Kuzmich, with the date of 1864 carved below.
A monk, head bowed and hooded canopy shielding his face, stood on each side of the stone coffin, murmuring somnolent prayers.
The old priest bent to the girl. "You are the awaited one of the legend...the girl with the Pravda." His lamplight reflected in her small, troubled eyes. Tanya took a step back and brushed away a tear. The old cleric spoke slowly, his lips slipping over tarnished brown teeth. "The man entombed here has a message for you."
Yuri stared at the smooth granite casket. "I bring my daughter at the request of my wife, Natalia."
"Where is your wife?" the priest asked.
"She has died. Three weeks ago."
The priest closed his eyes in a moment of reverent reflection. "You have done well to bring her." Placing his hand upon Tanya's black hair, the priest asked, "So it is true? I must know for certain. You can hear when a voice speaks an untruth? Do you truly have the Pravda?"
Tanya looked at her father, whose eyes relayed his approval. She then turned back to the priest, and nodded.
The priest sighed. "At long last the legend breathes."
Yuri asked, "How did you know that the girl and I would come?"
"Your wife knew the legend. It tells of a girl born with the Pravda -- a girl who should be brought here and given a message from the tomb."
"My wife would have brought the girl, but she was gravely ill for some time." The memory of his wife's passing drove a hot blade through Yuri's heart.
The priest gave a comforting smile. "Do not mourn. She awaits your arrival in Heaven, and Heaven is never far away. Her ears will be able to hear, and her lips able to speak words of love for you." He returned his attention to the girl. "It is a mystery why your daughter was born with the Pravda gift when her mother lived her entire life stone deaf."
Yuri studied the priest for a moment, long enough to remember the day his wife told him that when their daughter was old enough, they would visit the monastery. That was seven years ago. At the time Yuri hadn't understood his wife's words. Now he did.
The old priest clapped his weathered hands. The two monks standing by the stone coffin stepped forward, and, in unison, curled their fingers under the edge of the stone lid. They slid it slightly to one side. The scraping sound broke the chamber's silence. The lid refused to move easily. With a few more muscle-straining pushes, the heavy slab scooted a few more inches.
The priest turned his wizened face to the girl. "Remember this night well, child. Remember the legend. There is no secret in this world that time and Heaven does not unlock."
Stepping to the sarcophagus, he held the glowing paraffin lamp over the narrow gap between the grave's lid and stone side, and peered into the coffin's cavity.
Yuri moved to the priest's side and craned his neck to see what lay within. He saw a skull topped with a coarse, tangled tuft of gray hair. The tomb's occupant stared back with black, empty sockets. The skull had no jaw. His head, a stub of a spine, and a pair of arms was all Yuri could see. A full-length peasant chemise blackened with aged fungus covered the skeleton. In the naked bones of the right hand rested an old, golden snuff box.
The priest pulled back the sleeve of his cassock, then slid his arm through the space between the lid and side of the sarcophagus, until his searching fingers found the golden object. It was fused to brown, curdled skin. He pulled again and the relic came free, the connected dry sinew disintegrating into gritty granules. The priest drew the box slowly from the coffin and held it close to his light for a moment. Despite a layer of dust, it glinted in the light. He held it out to Tanya.
Tanya looked at Yuri. He nodded. Her hands trembled as she took the box. "What is it?"
The priest spoke softly, as if muttering a prayer. "It is a snuff box, child -- a gold snuff box. Inside is a message from long ago -- a message for you."
"Message?" Yuri asked.
"Yes, a message and a small glass vial of bread from Heaven -- the manna of God."
Yuri took the box and examined it. It was heavier than he expected and ornately crafted. Delicate filigree edged the golden lid and a double-headed eagle decorated the middle: the imperial seal of the royal Romanov family.
"What's a snuff box?" Tanya asked. She looked confused and frightened.
The priest explained. "Long ago, men ground tobacco into powder. The wealthy kept their powder in a golden snuff box."
Yuri gazed at the box resting in his gloved hand, his mind whirling with questions. "Who is the man in the grave? What does he have to do with us?"
The priest stepped away from the sarcophagus. "He once lived as a czar, his soul lost to the wind, but he died a monk saved by the cross of Jesus."
"The czar?" Yuri said. The words drained him of strength.
"Yes -- "
A loud pounding on the upstairs vestibule door rumbled down the stone steps. They froze in silence; the only sound Yuri could hear was the gulping breaths of his daughter.
They heard more pounding, followed by a muffled, harsh voice. "KGB. Open the door, priest."
The priest's forehead creased. He motioned for the two attending monks to go up the stairs and tend to the visitor. As they turned to go, the priest spoke in a reassuring tone. "In Christ, to die is gain." The hooded monks nodded, but said nothing. Their dark forms ascended the stone steps.
The priest turned to Yuri. "Bring the girl."
Without waiting for a reply, the priest turned and started down a narrow, low-arched tunnel that snaked into darkness. He was old and bent over, but he moved with urgency. The passageway's floor and walls felt slick. Yuri assumed the tunnel also served as drainage for the wet tomb. He gripped Tanya's hand.
Light from the priest's lantern reflected eerily off stone cavities cut in the walls. Stacked skeletons in various stages of decomposition plugged each cavity. A sour, pungent odor hung in the air. Yuri saw Tanya pulled her scarf over her face to keep from retching.
After a minute of shuffling and slipping in the icy maze of darkness, they reached the end. Yuri saw the faint blue hue of falling snow through the tunnel's exterior opening. A moment later, they stood in the monastery's courtyard.
The priest gulped for air -- more from exertion, Yuri assumed, than fear. The old man pointed to a dark clump of trees at the edge of the courtyard. "The evil one comes to take the child, so run; run with Godspeed."
Yuri led Tanya by the hand and had made fifty trudging strides in the snow when he heard a shot split the howling wind. Yuri turned and caught sight of a flashlight beam scanning the courtyard. The beam silhouetted the old priest as he held out his arms in a desperate attempt to stop the man's advance. The man easily shoved the old cleric aside, his frail form crumpling to the snow.
Yuri heard the crack of another gunshot,...
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
It's the truth
By Tim George
For seven years, Tanya Novak has lived in obscurity with a local goat farmer in rural Colorado. Tanya, an immigrant from Russia, is a normal teenager living with her guardian and caring for the livestock. Normal except for the fact her father is imprisoned in Siberia, she has come into possession of a mysterious Bible, a humiliated former KGB agent sees her capture as his ticket to restoration, she might know the location of a golden snuff box containing a portion of manna from Israel's wilderness wanderings, and she has been gifted with the Pravda. It is that gift, the ability to tell when others are truthful or deceitful, that becomes both her blessing and her curse.
The Pravda Messenger is a loose sequel to The Bell Messenger with a Bible being the connector between the two stories. Robert Cornuke's background as both a police investigator and world class archeologist lend authenticity to the sub-plot of Russian Czars and the shadowy world of antiquity traders and smugglers. In a relatively short novel, the author spins a great story of legends, international intrigue, and personal obsession. But the real star of the story is Tanya. Her innocence, devotion to the truth, and yearning to be reunited with her father carry the day. Cornuke does a good job of weaving Tanya's story with that of her father's plight in the bitter north of Russia.
Though it feels a bit rushed, the ending packs the kind of twist every good suspense story needs. And like most such novels, if I said any more you would be screaming at me for giving away the plot. It is sufficient here to say the cast of characters is diverse and believable: attorney Shannon Reed (a true believer), billionaire R.C. Cooper (a man obsessed with the secrets contained in an old family Bible), David Murk (a skeptic who can't help but believe), and a range of other secondary characters including a cameo appearance by Fidel Castor. Add to that a tight plot, fast passed story, and surprise ending. What more could you ask for in a suspense novel?
Sometimes it is a kiss of death to label a novel as smart in this day of increasingly shallow fiction but The Pravda Messenger is a smart story. Don't misinterpret that to mean it is not exciting or captivating because it is both. It is smart because the characters, dialogue, and well told story carry the day. Thought it is not necessary, you would do well to obtain the Bell Messenger to add yet another layer to an already great read. If you are gifted with the Pravda you will know I am telling you truth about this novel. Otherwise, I guess you will just have to read it for yourself.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Inspiring, unique and special
By A Customer
The Bell Bible is a divine journal ending up with people chosen by God. That person is the messenger and in the right hands has the power to change things for the good of its temporary owner. Through an unusual set of circumstances, the bible comes to Tanya of Colorado Springs after it was found on the ground following a plane crash and a thief stole it expecting riches.
Tanya immediately recognizes the bible having seen it seven years ago hidden in the tomb of Feodor Kuzmich, believed to be czar Alexander who left his pampered life to become a monk. She also recalls noticing a gold snuff box believed to hold manna inside it. In the present the Soviets want the manna to study it so that the scientists can increase food production; they reject any divine creation of manna. The Cubans want Tanta because she is the PRAVDA MESSENGER, a woman who can hear lies when they are spoken. Tanya's father is in a Gulag Camp C-23. People are working to free him so he can be used to blackmail Tanya into cooperating with her enemies.
There are many more villains in this intriguing work. This includes a Soviet spy who failed to obtain the snuff box seven years ago, which is the only blight on his record so he is obsessed with getting a second chance to recover it; an American working for a top secret agency whose desire for money supersedes his loyalty to his country and the Russians are willing to pay for his cooperation. Tanya is much more mature than her age as she understands the blessing she has received, but also knows the Lord will protect her. There are many heroes willing to become martyrs to keep her safe, but the most important is the Bell Bible given to God's chosen for his purpose. Inspiring, unique and special, fans will appreciate the PRAVDA MESSENGER.
Harriet Klausner
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A really great adventure!
By ey96
I thoroughly enjoyed this second installment of the "Bell Messenger" series! Cornuke and Gansky never fail to grab one and hold them hostage in their novels! I stayed up all night and all day on a plane with the first one and didn't take my nose out of this one until I was finished. The characters are original, the writing is descriptive and sometimes humorous and the story is very adventurous!
The only complaint I have is that I missed the layout of the first book: How it took you from the 1800s to 1980 with each chapter. This book was solely in the 1980s.
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