The Order of Virtue

Description

A brutal murder, a vanished fortune, and a secret born in the ashes of the Civil War— The Order of Virtue weaves history, ambition, and betrayal into a gripping modern thriller.

In the final months of the American Civil War, Judah P. Benjamin—brilliant attorney, diplomat, spymaster, and a Jewish statesman accustomed to a subtle prejudice that shadowed his career—convinces Confederate President Jefferson Davis to create a contingency plan should Richmond fall. Gold and Mexican silver, code-named Aurelian, would be secretly moved, intended to fund the South’s resurrection from the ashes of war. But Benjamin soon realizes the treasure has fallen into dangerous hands. To save it from the claws of a rabid antisemite, he forms the Order of Virtue, a clandestine brotherhood protected by ciphers so intricate that historians dismissed them as nonsense for over a century, lacking the technology to crack the codes—until now.

More than 160 years later, University of Georgia freshman Alex Stark is struggling. Denied a spot on the tennis team, broke, and bitter from being waitlisted, he jumps at the chance to infiltrate UGA’s elite Gridiron Secret Society—with the help of an investigative journalist and a rogue Georgia Tech hacker—unaware it will draw him into a dangerous web of treachery.

Meanwhile, Alex’s missteps set his sharp historian girlfriend, Sarah Keim, on a parallel quest: racing across history and around the world—from Athens to Brazil, from Auschwitz to Moscow—to find Aurelian before it falls into ruthless hands.

Together, their journeys uncover more than gold—they reveal the complexities of history, the cost of ambition, and the redemptive power of facing one’s failures.