Buddha's Cross

BUDDHA'S CROSS Please think hard before reading this novel. It is dangerous, and may cause headaches and hot flashes. Those with conventional beliefs may find their hair standing on end. Read how the diary of a sex slave spawns a crusade to civilize the last feudal outpost in the Western world: One day a body washes up in the river carrying a book that exposes a century-old lie. The workers on a tobacco plantation learn they are slaves and that there's a world beyond the wall where power is measured not by the size of their bombs but by the strength of their moral superiority. Elma Hanasy steals a page from the book and is born again as Marilyn Pope. She initiates a grand scheme to bring health and safety, caring and sharing to the village of Thades. But Ned Pullman is an old-fashioned man with nothing to lose. After years of living on the verge of starvation, he finds himself backed into a corner and explodes in a fit of senseless violence. He murders the bailiff and triggers an old-style revolution-full of bloodshed and tears. As the revolution exhausts itself, the pendulum of human appetites swings the other way again. Marilyn ushers in a brave new world with every possible safeguard against violence and inequality. Ned loses everything and learns the hard way that membership in society is a treasure to be coveted. He joins a band of outcasts to rob the trade wagon, but encounters a devil from the past and instead ends up joining a cult that claims to have a cure for what ails humankind. But if you think that that is all there is, my friends....