THE LAST CATO -- Here we go again! Professor David Maltsberger of the Baptist University of the Américas e-mails a heads-up:

Be watching for the big splash surrounding "The Last Cato"
(http://www.thelastcato.com/) [out in March/April] a DaVinci Code knock-off that features a Vatican paleographer-nun, the Coptic archaeologist with whom she falls in love, and a high placed Swiss Guard with a dirty secret all plumbing the depths of the Staurofilakes (keepers of the True Cross) theft of holy relics by following the secrets hidden in Dante's "Purgatory".

Having just finished an advanced copy, while the storyline is on par with Brown's book as far as readability, the author's confusion over the relationships between classical, Koine, and Byzantine Greek is obvious. A few wild theological interpretations of NT theology and early church history will also no doubt create a wide array of "The Truth Behind the Last Cato" books. Too, when the key historical text of the Staurofilakes is found by our heroes in a basket of cast-off manuscripts ready to be burned at Santa Katrina a la Tischendorf, informed readers will chortle with delight. Assuming the horrific errors in Greek case endings are edited out in the final edition along with transliterated rather than translated geographic names from the Italian original, "The Last Cato" makes an enjoyable, although eye-rolling, late night read will pump new life into Dante's flea-bitten soul.

This is the first I've heard of it.