Bookreporter.com - GOD'S SPY by Juan Gomez-Jurado

GOD'S SPY
Juan Gomez-Jurado
Dutton
Thriller
ISBN-10: 0525949941
ISBN-13: 9780525949947

The premise of GOD'S SPY, Juan Gomez-Jurado's debut novel, is electrifying. Set in 2005, beginning at the moment of the death of Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gather in Vatican City to elect a new Pope. Two of them are murdered almost immediately. Paola Dicanti, an Italian police inspector and profiler, is assigned to the investigation. She finds herself working reluctantly with, and occasionally against, the Santa Alianza, the Vatican's equivalent of the Secret Service.

Things take an even more dramatic turn with the appearance of Father Anthony Fowler, an enigmatic American priest with a background in Army intelligence and a history with the killer, who is quickly revealed to be Victor Karosky. It turns out that Fowler had encountered Karosky years before while investigating St. Matthew's Institute in Maryland, a facility utilizing a controversial method for the treatment of pederast clergy. Karosky was one of the patients there, and Fowler's interviews with him continue to haunt Fowler's memory. When someone close to Dicanti is killed by the same individual, it becomes personal --- both for her and the murderer.

The resultant cat-and-mouse pursuit is a heartstopper, using Vatican City, the gathering of the Cardinals and the massive influx of the faithful mourning the deceased Pope to create a tense, electrifying and claustrophobic atmosphere. The investigation is made more difficult by the abrasive relationship between the Italian and Vatican police officials, whose overlapping jurisdictions cause some hostility, and the slow-cooking, uncomfortable and almost irresistible sexual tension between Fowler and Dicanti. It is Karosky, however, who is the perfect villain of the piece, a socially irredeemable monster who seems bent on nothing less than the destruction of the Church hierarchy and who, despite the best efforts of his worthy adversaries, appears unstoppable.

The controversy swirling around GOD'S SPY has multiple origins, not the least of which is the scandal involving the concealment of the molestation of children by Catholic clergy. St. Matthew's Institute, a prominent element of the book, has a real-world model, and its depiction here hits too close to home for some. The author is not pandering --- Karosky's pederasty and how it came to be are central elements in his psychological composition --- but the descriptions of Karosky's childhood are every bit as horrific as the manner of the executions he performs on others.

That having been said, Gomez-Jurado overreaches himself just a bit near the conclusion. Vociferous readers of the genre will guess one of the erstwhile surprises revealed in the denouement (we can be fooled once but not twice), and a half-hearted attempt to somehow tie the Bush administration into the proceedings is so weak and laughable that only a Michael Moore enthusiast would find it credible. Indeed, by the end of the novel, the author himself seems to tire of the stretch and abandons it.

But these are minor quibbles, as GOD'S SPY is a wild, compelling ride full of characters you really want to care about. And good news: if the enigmatic final few pages of this work are any indication, some of these individuals could end up returning for another go-round. Let's hope so.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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