The New York Times bestselling author of Buddha and Jesus weaves together masterful storytelling, historical narrative, mystery and intrigue, to reveal surprising discoveries about the unknown last disciple of Christ, offering a new understanding of who Jesus really was in his final days. A missing nun, a distressed young woman who wants to take back an obituary from the local newspaper and a solid gold reliquary missing from a church in Belgium that suddenly resurfaces in America. These are the ingredients that set off Deepak Chopra's new novel, The 13th Disciple. When a young newspaper man begins to investigate the lost reliquary, at first it seems like another case of a treasure stolen during the chaos of World War II. But it soon becomes apparent that much more is at stake. Inside the medieval reliquary is a sacred relic - a single finger bone - from an anonymous saint. Why should an anonymous person's remains be considered holy? It turns out that a secret is hidden inside the gold box and a small band of people know what it is - by touching the reliquary, they have received mental images and sometimes verbal messages. These point to a figure far more remote than the Middle Ages. It's a young girl who had a chance encounter with Jesus just before he was crucified. The few people who have had visions of her have banded together as a mystery school, a closed society who preserve sacred wisdom so that it won't be lost. As The 13th Disciple unfolds, we discover that the secrets inside the reliquary are at once fascinating and controversial, because the young girl went on a quest to discover who Jesus really was and the answers she came up with are at times far different from the accepted gospels. Did she become the last and truest disciple of Christ?