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Daniel Silva's new spy thriller, which is riding on the coattails of his bestseller THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN, proves without a doubt that conspiracy is still alive today and thriving in Europe without the aid of communism --- in fiction, anyway. For the material in this book, Silva reaches back to the source of the oldest conspiracies that still exist in the modern world: the Roman Catholic Church. You may not believe in God --- in fact, it might help if you don't --- but you will believe in the potential deviousness of the men of God by the end of THE CONFESSOR.
From Venice to Rome to Munich to a villa in Switzerland, from a convent on a lake in the foothills of the Alps to London and then on to France and back again, this book gets around at a fast and convincing pace. Everyone is flawed --- the main characters have all killed and will kill again if they must. The difference is in what motivates them to kill. You learn to make your choices about who to root for by distinguishing among shades of gray. The only really good guy, i.e. non-killer, happens to be the pope.
In a fictional near future, there is a new pope in Rome. A former cardinal of Venice, the new guy goes by the name of Paul VII. He was a compromise candidate, a "caretaker pope" elected when the presumed strongest candidate couldn't come up with enough votes in the College of Cardinals. It is soon evident, however, that the new pope isn't as harmless as certain movers and shakers of the Curia thought he'd be --- and so the ball is set in motion.
In Munich, a well-respected professor is murdered. The professor was a Jew, returning to Germany for his scholarship after a time in Israel. He was currently on sabbatical and writing a book, keeping the research very close to his chest; the research and manuscript are missing when his body is found. In Venice, an art restorer, a mysterious man who works upon a shrouded scaffold and lives perpetually in solitude, receives a call he cannot refuse. The professor was not just a friend, but a comrade-in-arms of old. Gabriel, the artist, must leave the beloved madonna he has been bringing back to life on the wall of an ancient church in order to find out who killed his friend. This is not a personal duty --- he is ordered to go for the branch of the Israeli Secret Service to which he still belongs. But when things get really dicey and another agent tries to send him home to Israel, Gabriel continues to look for his friend's killer.
Meanwhile, in and around Rome, the cardinal who wanted to be pope but didn't get enough votes is stirring his secret ecclesiastical pot. It seems that there is an organization within the church, so long rumored without confirmation that, even within the Vatican, some think it's a myth --- this organization is called Crux Vera. These men are so right-wing they make Opus Dei look moderate. They are not all priests; some are among the wealthiest businessmen in Europe, as were their predecessors, who turn out to have been at the heart of a previous shameful situation that was covered up by the church and by a previous pope at the time of World War II. They don't do their dirty work themselves. Rather, they hire the best --- and they reach out for a man in Switzerland who is known throughout Europe as the Leopard, yet he has been so seldom seen that some think he, too, is a myth. Dig deep enough into the Leopard's past and you will find he was once a seminarian.
The plot of THE CONFESSOR is complex, yes, but it's so believable that, by the end of the book, you will be wondering how much of this might really have happened, or might happen yet. It's a fine, absorbing read --- especially if you'd like something that feels current and will occupy your mind so thoroughly that, for a while, you can forget about what's going on in the rest of the world.
--- Reviewed by Ava Dianne Day
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