He was a traitor a rabble-leader a rebel a liar & a pretender to the throne. We have tried to forget him here. For fans of The Good Man Jesus & the Scoundrel Christ" by Phillip Pulman Naomi Aldermans " The Liars Gospel" is the story of a Jewish man Yehoshuah who wandered Roman-occupied Judea giving sermons & healing the sick. Now a year after his death four people tell their stories. His mother flashes between grief & rage while trouble brews between her village & the occupying soldiers. Iehuda who was once Yehoshuahs friend recalls how he came to lose his faith & find a place among the Romans. Caiaphas the High Priest at the great Temple in Jerusalem tries to hold the peace between Rome & Judea. Bar-Avo a rebel strives to bring that peace tumbling down. " The Liars Gospel" makes the oldest story entirely new. Viscerally powerful in its depictions of the realities of the period: massacres & riots animal sacrifice & human betrayal it finds echoes of the present in the past. It was a time of political power-play & brutal tyranny & occupation. Young men & women took to the streets to protest. Dictators put them down with iron force. Rumours spread from mouth to mouth. Rebels attacked the greatest Empire the world has ever known. The Empire gathered its forces to make those rebels pay. & in the midst of all of that one inconsequential preacher died. & either something miraculous happened or someone lied. " Remarkable. Alderman is a supremely talented writer". (Joanne Harris). "A glittering style a compulsive pleasure". (" Metro"). " Witty dark & compelling". (Charlotte Mendelson). Naomi Alderman grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community in northwest London. Her first novel " Disobedience" was published in 10 languages & won the Orange Award for New Writers & the " Sunday Times" Young Writer of the Year prize. Like her second novel " The Lessons" it was broadcast as Radio 4s " Book at Bedtime". She is a frequent radio broadcaster & a regular contributor to the " Guardian" & " Prospect". She lives in London."