Historically founded on a sixteenth century alchemist's elixir of long life (and the basis for the French liqueur), CHARTREUSE is a story of supernatural transformation; of the elixir's ingredients on which a Pope's life rests; of a young man's destiny and the chain of world events that lead to his final, wrenching choice.The central character, Blaise, is summoned to Switzerland once he learns he has inherited a parchment containing the recipe for nothing less than the elixir of life. He's directed to a distiller in the French countryside - a Carthusian monk at La Grande Chartreuse - for he alone knows how "to execute the formula to the greater glory of God and humanity."At the same time, someone wants the Pope dead and has infected him with a fatal disease. So the race is on: to save the Pope; to see which woman will accompany Blaise during his travails - his current lover, or a flame from his past; to discover if the culprit can keep the elixir from reaching the Vatican.CHARTREUSE is fast-paced without being frantic. And yet, in the drawing power of the plot's twists and turns, so much more than a plot goes on: a romance, a thriller, a source book of homeopathy, miraculous events, a spiritual journey. It's a search for a cure; a search for a moral code; a search for identity. With CHARTREUSE, Joseph Roccasalvo has written a novel about the sacred and the profane - a contemporary symbol of our 21st century lives.