Vatican City Under Threat

After the events in the first book of this series where Vatican City and the pope are saved from annihilation, Giampolo Benedetto fled to Crete. Cardinal Lucci sends the warrior priest Marco Venetti after him to extract the name of the Vatican mastermind traitor of the plan. He’s got the much-needed help of Elena and Sarah but Benedetto manages to escape and contacts the Russian mobsters that holds the 2 tactical nuclear weapons. At the same time Pietro is deployed to retrieve those weapons. The all have to cooperate to avoid a disaster.



The book builds strongly on the events of the first book. They’re shortly retold at the start, but to understand all the ins and outs, I advise to read the first book as well. It’s a great thriller and it is well worth your time.

The attraction between Sarah and Marco only grows stronger but Marco refuses to betray his vows a second time. Sarah isn’t happy with this decision and is bored and tired of the violence and hate that rules their lives. Marco is just as sick of all this as well and wants nothing more than to retreat back to his parish at the coast. There is hope on the horizon for them as I see it because the Nigerian born reformist pope wants reunification with the orthodox church and their priests can marry.

This reformist pope is awesome but unfortunately not very realistic. Any such progressive decisions would cause more schisms. The recent declaration that the church cannot bless same-sex marriages because they’re a sin, sets the clock back again. This came weeks after the pope declared that homosexuals had the right to live in families. So, it looks as if pope Francis was slapped on his wrists there. So other reforms as women priests and married priests are also unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Of course, the figure of the militant father Venetti is also a figment of imagination but a good one for the sake of the book.

The investigation seems to find more and more circumstantial evidence that cardinal Lucci is the traitor. I thought it all a bit too obvious for him to be the mastermind but I won’t tell if I’m right or not. He’s in dire straits though.

The story is suspenseful on several levels as so many things all happen at the same time. There are the investigation and the search for the real traitor inside the Vatican, the search for the nukes, the Russian gangsters, the antics of Benedetto, the dangerous intentions of the pope self, … The suspense jumps right off the pages and doesn’t stop until the very end. It’s a fast-paced story, but there’s also time taken to describe the environment in which all the action takes place and that goes from ancient Portuguese towns to the mountains in the US where Sarah’s father resides. All of this is written in a rich and varied language that never gets elitist.

I suspect the author to be a lover of good Italian wines. I don’t know anything about them but there are several suggestions in the narrative. If they taste anything as their descriptions, they are the most interesting finds. The wine certainly plays a key role in this story.

I thank Netgalley and Bookouture for the free ARC they provided and this is my honest and unbiased review of it.