I’ll come right out with it: I’m a huge nerd. HUGE. And I’m totally fine with that. I embrace it. “For one day, the geeks shall inherit the earth…” or something like that, right? So imagine my delight when, in the middle of a truly compelling plot, I found… History.

I’m not talking about 10th grade American History, where we learned about which president was best known for getting stuck in a bathtub (Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?). I’m talking history like we all wish was on the History Channel. The history of the Lausanne Cathedral in Lausanne, Switzerland, the history of the town itself, brought me to yearn for the beauty and peace described in brilliant and concise detail. Add in the mystery surrounding an ancient scroll banned from the Bible, and I was all in. Plus? All true. (I Googled it.)

Through tight and seamless prose, author Jon Steele weaves together the lives of three seemingly unrelated people: Katherine, a high-priced call girl hiding out in Lausanne, Switzerland, after the IRS came looking for all of her “assets”; Jay Harper, a security consultant with the IOC, though through his whiskey breath and bloodshot eyes, even he can’t see why he was recruited for this station; and Marc Rochat, le guet de Lausanne, or, the watcher of Lausanne, who spends his nights calling the hour from the belfry of the Lausanne Cathedral. These three souls, these… Angels… Must find their way to one another through forces of both heaven and hell to save what is left of Creation here on Earth.

The Watchers brings together light and dark, sacred and profane, history and metaphysics, all to tell a tale of human salvation, and to remind all of us, I think, that we’re not alone. Our guardian angels are always watching.