The Latecomers — E.M. Nathanson

The Valley of His Passion Park is a Biblical fantasyland in the desert near Los Angeles. Among its features are a daily Passion Play and modern replicas of Sodom and Gomorrah. But one morning its creators find an unplanned addition to their newly constructed Calvary: a human body crucified on Christ's cross. The Latecomers evokes the spiral of crises and confrontations that led to the place of crucifixion and its aftermath. The space between the knowable and the fantastic blurs as the inevitable questions arise. Who is on the cross? Who put him there? Why? Some of the vivid characters through whom the roiling plot is lived are: Rev. Flodur X Rudolf: Genius, fool or megalomaniac? Creator of The Valley of His Passion Park, Inc. (along with powerful local real estate interests and the proprietor of a Las Vegas casino). Susannah: his young wife - a strange, beautiful girl whose past and present blur into nightmare, who cannot tell real from imagined. Nicholas Concert: sexton, handyman, adviser, disciple - formerly a priest, disillusioned, searching desperately for something or someone to believe in. Jesse Quest: the man on the cross. By the manner of his dying, his life had to be remembered and probed, his gospels studied, derided, feared. Lester Warner: the sheriff's lieutenant in charge of investigating what happened; an aggressive cop looking for what's in it for him. Lulu, Gert, Fannie Mae and Frankie: a rootless, mindless, savage gang out for loot and kicks, swept up in events beyond anything they had expected. Logan Thomas: a newspaperman who finds in the crucifixion a complex, fearful story and an irresistible fascination.