The Cult of Relics is a novel by Alan M. Kent (author of Proper Job,
Charlie Curnow! and Electric Pastyland). The story is set in Western
Britain in the mid-1990s just after the Gulf War, and tells of three
extraordinary people: of the New-Age Traveller Jude Fox, of the American
photojournalist Eddie Hopkins, and of the Cornish-born archaeologist
Robert Bolitho. The three characters discover a set of connections
between them, stretching back to the early seventeenth century. Kent's
intriguing story weaves together their disparate lives with that of the
mysterious "Stranger", whose preservation of a curious holy relic
becomes a focus for their collective need for communion and hope.