“Head and shoulders above the usual Church themed thrillers with an intelligent plot and thoughtful characters.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
The other night I started to read another new writer to me, Tom Fox; the book, Dominos, is based in and round The Vatican and Rome.
It starts with a very disabled Pope who is healed by a stranger who interrupts Mass. The Pope then falls to his knees and kisses the man’s hand. The story itself is then wrapped around the widening and circling ripples of the event.
There is a lot made of corruption within The Vatican and the Roman Church as a whole, of which many books have been written.
The Pope had set his eyes on clearing it all out; what he didn’t expect is the vastness of that corruption even before he was elected. What of the stranger? Is he part of it too? Added to the Pope’s healing, several other mass healings take place in various clinics in Europe. There’s a group of powerful businessmen lead by one very strong woman who is behind most of the corruption within the Vatican Bank. Her two main objects are the shaming of a cardinal and the ultimate fall of the whole church.
Wrapped around it is a devote Catholic police officer and her one time would be lover, a former priest who lost his faith because of what he saw during his time working within the Vatican. Now a journalist, the two come together again to investigate what is happening. Following them is a group of hit-men who will stop at nothing to silence them.
What this story isn’t, is a Dan Brown story without all the art history, it’s far from that. There are murders a plenty, near misses, car-bombs, and of course, a corrupt copper. This is another easy read for me, and that makes me like it even more.
Published by Headline, I do wish they had taken more care with the formatting/printing. Otherwise, a very good read and I shall be looking forward to his next one.
Reviewed by:
Ron Clark
Added 2nd June 2016
