First, in Jerusalem, in the year 70 A.D., moments before the Jewish temple is about to be overrun and destroyed by Roman soldiers, a young boy is entrusted with ‘a great secret, known only to a few,‘ and – with three important signs to guide him – the young boy will be the first in a succession of seventy generations of individuals who will safely guard the secret.

Second, the chain-smoking police Egyptian inspector Yusuf Ezz el-Din Khalifa begins investigating the death of Piet Jansen, a hotel owner in Luxor.

However, before you begin reading The Secret Supper, one of the most provocative and interesting novels of the last decade, you might want to prepare yourself in several ways:

• First, absolutely forget about other recent novels that attempt to develop similar fictional themes (e.g., The Da Vinci Code and its many clones) because Sierra’s singularly remarkable novel deserves special consideration for the ways in which the author masterfully confronts the theme of conflict between faith, reason, passion, and truth;
• second, consult the library or the Internet and find yourself a viewable copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Last Supper, which you will probably want to consult frequently as you travel along the labyrinth of Sierra’s plot; the original of The Last Supper, incidentally, appears on the north wall of the refectory of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan;
• third, take some time to reacquaint yourself with the story of Jesus’ final days, the crucifixion, and the aftermath as that story appears in the Christian gospels of the New Testament;
• and fourth, keep in mind Leonardo da Vinci’s advice to one of the characters in The Secret Supper: ‘Everything, absolutely everything has a hidden meaning.‘

The action begins in 1497.