A man with no known past and no name as been dispatched to the deserts, ghost towns, and underbelly of drug-infested Arizona to uncover a secret that could forever change the scope and teachings of Christianity.

A DEA agent has written that he possesses the unmistakable and undeniable proof that Christ did indeed return to earth again and walk the land of the Aztecs almost fifteen hundred years after his crucifixion on the cross. But has the agent found a relic? An artifact? A long lost manuscript of the written Word? No one knows, and the agent dies before he can smuggle the secret out of an empty grave.

Andrews St. Aubin can’t dig past the charred fragments of his memory, but he must unravel the legend of Quetzalcoatl, the white-skinned, blue-eyed, god figure whose sixteenth century ministry, death, resurrection, and mystical promise to return someday to gather up his people closely parallels the Biblical story of the man called Christ. Is Quetzalcoatl merely a myth, or was he Christ himself?

In St. Aubin’s quest to find the answers, he becomes involved in a rogue CIA plot to invade Mexico and wage an unholy war on drugs. He finds himself pursued by the same mysterious assassin who struck down the DEA agent.

Does the artifact actually exist? Who possesses it now? St. Aubin battles an unseen and unknown enemy in an effort to survive long enough to discover the truth. If he doesn’t, he knows that death awaits him on the desert sands of a land held sacred for centuries by the mysterious and holy ones.

Download the opening text from: Place of Skulls

Caleb Pirtle III

Author of Place of Skulls.

Caleb Pirtle III is the author of more than fifty-five books, including newest novel, Place of Skulls, a mysterious quest for a mysterious religious artifact that, if proven true, would provide undeniable proof that Christ had already returned to earth more than five hundred years ago.

Caleb Pirtle III was a graduate of The University of Texas in Austin with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He served as sports editor for The Daily Texan and became the first student at the university to win the National William Randolph Hearst Award for feature writing.

He began his career in the newspaper business, working with the Plainview Daily Herald and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, winning both the Texas Associated Press and Headliner’s Awards.

When Governor John Connally began the Texas Tourist Development Agency, he named Pirtle as his chief of media relations, which introduced Pirtle to the world of travel. He left Texas to become the travel editor of Southern Living Magazine for a decade, capturing the Discover America Award three times. At Southern Living, he wrote three books – The Unending Season, XIT: The American Cowboy, and The Grandest Day, all Southeastern Library Association award winners.  He wrote two novels for Berkeley based on the Gambler series: Dead Man’s Hand and Jokers Are Wild.

Pirtle served as editorial director for Dockery House Publishing in Dallas for twenty-five years, developing and producing books and magazines for the corporate and retail marketplace.

He has written three teleplays: Gambler V: Playing for Keeps, a mini-series for CBS television, Wildcat: The Story of Sarah Delaney and the Doodlebug Man, for a CBS made-for-television movie, and The Texas Rangers, a TV movie for John Milius and TNT television.

Pirtle’s other books on Texas are: Texas: Its Lore and Its Lure, The Texas Outback, Deep Roots, Texas: The Rare Breed, Texas: Legacy of a Proud Land, Echoes from Forgotten Streets, Visions of Forgotten Streets, Life on Kilgore’s Unforgettable Streets, The Lonely Sentinel, The Glory Days, Places of Miracles, Engineering the World, Other Voices, Other Towns, Texas Cooking, and The Official, Old-Fashioned, Down-Home, Home-Grown Texas Cookbook.

Pirtle lives in Hideaway, Texas, with his wife, Linda.