The Order

Just what I needed, after reading several more demanding books, was this fast moving thriller about a plot to take over the papacy by an ultra-conservative semi-secret society. I have read a couple of other books by Daniel Silva--the first in the "Gabriel Allon series" The Kill Artist, and a later one in the series, The English Girl, both of which I enjoyed. This is the 20th book in the series, and although it helps to have some familiarity with the series just for character development purposes, I found this book no less compelling in spite of not reading them in order or in great numbers. Gabriel has become the director general of Israeli Intelligence services and so works constantly. His wife, Chiara, must plot with the Prime Minister and Gabriel's co-workers to engineer a much needed vacation in Venice with their two young children. The children's maternal grandparents also live there, giving Gabriel and Chiara the possibility of time alone as well. But fate or bad actors intervene when the Pope suddenly dies and Archbishop Luigi Donati, the Pope's devoted private secretary, comes to Allon with his suspicions of foul play.  The Swiss guard who normally stood outside the Pope's quarters has disappeared as has a letter the Pope was in the process of writing to Gabriel Allon.  "'While researching in the Vatican Secret Archives, I came upon a most remarkable book . . . ,' the pope begins his letter to Allon, and the whereabouts of that book--the suppressed Gospel of Pontius Pilate, in which the Roman prelate contradicts the New Testament's version of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus--drive the action here, as Allon and Donati track the secretive Order of St. Helena, a far-right Catholic society with a plan to hijack the papacy (think The Manchurian Candidate). Can Allon both save the Catholic Church and, with an assist from Pontius Pilate, help to undo the church's legacy of anti-Semitism?" (Booklist)

Kirkus calls it "Engaging and deftly paced." I call it perfect pandemic reading!