The Promise of God

Mysterious events are happening. Five of the most powerful corporate chairmen in the world have suffered heart attacks and had the same exact vision during their near-death experiences, a word written in an arcane, ancient language they cannot identify. Cold fusion, an unlimited source of energy, has been achieved in Israel but the scientists responsible for it refuse to reveal the formula for its use.

Isaac Benda Cortes, a passionate, outspoken Brazilian Cardinal who is one of the two likely candidates to succeed the elderly ailing Pope, is targeted by the drug cartel that he condemns. Cortes' passionate thirst for justice leads to a search for his own origins—a search that leads him to discover the future of Western faith.

And, Grant Tyler, the head of the worlds' most powerful media network watches distraught as his beloved wife dies of cancer. What she whispers to him on her deathbed sends him spiraling through an epic odyssey that will unite all the mysterious strand of events and enlighten the world to its destiny.

In David Shapiro's first work of fiction, and the first work of fiction for Simcha Press, readers will take an edge-of-their-seat journey into the religious and powerful structures of Brazil, Israel, Rome and the United States. A certain bestseller, The Promise of God is packed with suspense, mystery, romance and intrigue.

Mysterious events are happening. Five of the most powerful corporate chairmen in the world have suffered heart attacks and had the same exact vision during their near-death experiences, a word written in an arcane, ancient language they cannot identify. Cold fusion, an unlimited source of energy, has been achieved in Israel but the scientists responsible for it refuse to reveal the formula for its use.

Isaac Benda Cortes, a passionate, outspoken Brazilian Cardinal who is one of the two likely candidates to succeed the elderly ailing Pope, is targeted by the drug cartel that he condemns. Cortes' passionate thirst for justice leads to a search for his own origins--a search that leads him to discover the future of Western faith.

And, Grant Tyler, the head of the worlds' most powerful media network watches distraught as his beloved wife dies of cancer. What she whispers to him on her deathbed sends him spiraling through an epic odyssey that will unite all the mysterious strand of events and enlighten the world to its destiny.

In David Shapiro's first work of fiction, and the first work of fiction for Simcha Press, readers will take an edge-of-their-seat journey into the religious and powerful structures of Brazil, Israel, Rome and the United States. A certain bestseller, The Promise of God is packed with suspense, mystery, romance and intrigue.

Publishers Weekly

The appearance of the Jewish messiah within the leadership ranks of the Catholic Church creates a spiritual and political crisis in Shapiro's heavy-handed first novel. The man in question is a humble South American cardinal named Isaac Benda Cortes, a rising candidate for the papacy. As the election draws closer, Benda Cortes not only discovers that he has Jewish ancestry, but also learns that he may well be the long-awaited messiah of the Jewish people. Cortes's family history attracts the attention of a number of powerful figures, including a South American drug lord, a quartet of wealthy American executives visited by mystical visions after suffering heart attacks, a professional basketball star who shares those visions and a Turneresque media mogul who seeks to promote Cortes as the new pontiff after a prominent Israeli rabbi informs him that the cardinal's rise to prominence matches a prophecy predicting the arrival of a Jewish messiah. The secular situation is complicated when a group of Israeli scientists discover the formula for cold fusion, then take the world to the edge of Armageddon when they refuse to share their work until the messiah is revealed. Shapiro's prose style is strictly by the numbers, and despite his attempts to erase the long-standing antagonism between Judaism and Catholicism, the gist of Cortes's message is that the Jewish faith should assume primacy because longevity gives it the greatest historical validity. In a spiritual world in which most readers have lost their tolerance for interfaith squabbling, such a conclusion may strike most as simplistic and divisive. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

David Shapiro is a pianist-composer who attended Northwestern University and Berklee College of Music. He has written music for theater and television, screenplays, and speeches for major corporations. He met his wife three weeks into college and proposed to her two days later. Now, after twenty-five years, they have four children. After suffering the agonizing loss of his sister to breast cancer, he was driven to write this book. He is a lifelong fanatic Chicago White Sox fan and waits faithfully for their eventual triumph