"A Del Rey book"--T.p. verso.

"Shortly after the change of the Millennium, in a tiny Mexican village, people of different faiths are flocking to Santa Pelagia from all over the planet to witness a miraculous visitation. Among them are twenty-four who experience something more personal: a messenger clothed in the raiments of his or her own beliefs--the Virgin Mary, an angel of Islam, the Hindu goddess Kali. And each is given the same terrifying message: the Day of Judgment is at hand. The Vatican sends Father Michele Deauchez to investigate...Yet, as a man of reason, a man deeply scarred by his own experience of the supernatural, he cannot--will not--believe. Simon Hill is a...reporter for the New York Times, Hill has a nose for news--and Santa Pelagia smells like Pulitzer material... As Deauchez and Hill search ever deeper for the truth--penetrating the holiest councils of the Vatican, the boardrooms of powerful multinational corporations, and the highest reaches of the U.S. government and military--they begin to wonder: Is this phenomenon a case of mass hysteria . . . a devious, far-reaching plot . . . or has God truly spoken?"--Jacket.