Where did Jesus go from the age of 12 to 30?
The Secret Books is an epic adventure of a young man in the Crimea who is drawn out of his world by an eccentric female journalist, leading to a life as a Russian spy infiltrating anarchist circles and going undercover in British India where, seeking refuge from a confrontation with a British officer, he discovers a manuscript which holds the secret of Jesus' lost years.
But is this gospel true?
Marcel Theroux takes the reader on spellbinding journey through 19th-century Paris, the Russian Empire and high plateau of India through a world of spies and double cross, propaganda and revolutionary violence, lost-love and anti-semitism, and into a modern world where lies have the power of truth.
Based on real events, The Secret Books is at once a page-turning adventure, a meditation on the nature of belief and an examination of the stories that humans are willing to kill and die for.

Marcel Theroux is the author of four previous novels: The Paperchase, winner of the 2002 Somerset Maugham Award; A Blow to the Heart; Far North, which was short-listed for America's prestigious National Book Award; and Strange Bodies.
He lives in London.