The Seville Communion

An emissary from the Vatican investigates the foul play surrounding the pending demolition of a crumbling church in the heart of old Seville, in a sophisticated thriller by the author of The Club Dumas. 75,000 first printing.

Mysterious, deadly conflicts between history and modernity drive Spanish author Perez-Reverte's latest literate thriller (after The Club Dumas, 1997), an engaging tale of love, greed, faith, betrayal and murder set in contemporary Seville. When a computer hacker penetrates Vatican security to send an urgent, anonymous plea to the pope, Father Lorenzo Quart of the church's Institute of External Affairs?a sort of Vatican CIA?is dispatched to investigate. The hacker's message concerns a troubled 17th-century church in Seville, Our Lady of the Tears. Apparently, the dilapidated church "kills to defend itself." It stands in the way of a huge real estate deal, and two people have died there?in apparent accidents?as they brought pressure to condemn it. A handsome dandy who wears expensive black suits instead of a cassock and knows how to conduct himself in a fistfight, Quart prides himself on his discipline but soon finds it heavily taxed as he's embroiled with a bellicose, elderly parish priest, a blue-jeaned American nun and a stunning Andalusian duchess intent on saving the church from the businessmen (including her husband) who threaten it. Despite some unconvincing plotting and a few heavy-handed moments, Perez-Reverte's characters capture the imagination, and his dramatic Seville seduces his protagonist and readers alike. 75,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; film rights to Canal Plus and Iberoamericana. (Apr.) FYI: The Seville Communion is appearing simultaneously with Vintage's paperback issue of The Club Dumas.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This superbly entertaining and intricate thriller, following close on the heels of its predecessors, The Flanders Panel (1994, not reviewed) and The Dumas Club (1997), confirms its Spanish author's growing reputation as the thinking man's Robert Ludlum. When Vatican security is breached by an unknown hacker who breaks into the Pope's personal computer, all-purpose emissary (and frre semblable, if you will, to James Bond) Father Lorenzo Quart is sent to Seville to investigate two mysterious deaths, learn the meaning of cryptic messages that importune the Pontiff to rescue a dilapidated church, Our Lady of the Tearsand also to deduce the identity of the high-tech interloper papal subordinates have dubbed ``Vespers.'' Prez-Reverte smoothly works into his unfailingly absorbing narrative a colorful parade of power-brokers and schemers, ecclesiastical and secular alike. Among them: Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz, the Pope's truculent countryman, who mourns the bygone Inquisition; bank executive Pencho Gavira, who has lost his beautiful wife Macarena to a young bullfighter and fights to keep control of a ``development coup'' that requires Our Lady to be demolished; an amusing criminal trio (who might have stepped out of the pages of Oliver Twist) comprising ``former fake lawyer'' Don Ibrahim, pass flamenco singer La Nia, and unfrocked boxer El Potro; andbest of allOur Lady's Father Priamo Ferro, ``an insubordinate astronomer priest'' whose stargazing avocation coexists uneasily with his stubborn refusal to hold onto his imperiled church. Father Lorenzo keeps encountering suspicious people, any of whom might be Vespers, as the body count rises and as ingeniously juxtaposed plots and counterplots twist toward a climax that puts Quart at the amorous mercy of the seductive Macarena and sees Father Ferro arrested for a murder to which he has perhaps falsely confessed. The identity of Vespers, and a stunning disclosure about Father Ferro saved for the very last sentence, bring this literate whodunit to a deliciously satisfying conclusion. Reading Prez-Reverte is one of the most choice pleasures contemporary fiction offers. (First printing of 75,000; $100,000 ad/promo; film rights to Canal Plus and Iberoamericana) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The many readers who enjoyed the author's previous The Flanders Panel (1994) and Club Dumas (1997) will find his latest novel absolutely engrossing, and readers who ordinarily do not gravitate to thrillers could begin an appreciation of the genre right here. In a wonderfully complicated, greatly atmospheric, and delectably sophisticated narrative, Perez-Reverte sees modern technology at work in an age-old institution; specifically, a hacker sends an anonymous message to Vatican authorities by breaking into the pope's personal computer system, bringing to the Holy Father's attention the curious troubles taking place at a small church in Seville, Spain. Vatican authorities dispatch Father Lorenzo Quart of the Institute of External Affairs, whose charge is to gather information concerning the scandal that is brewing around Our Lady of the Tears Church. Not only have two people associated with the church been killed recently, the church itself faces demolition. There are certainly parties in town that would profit from its condemnation. Is the little church itself responsible for the deaths, as if it were a living being? And what people in the community have a vested interest in seeing that the church remains standing? And how is an attractive man like Father Quart supposed to remember his vow of chastity in a sensuous city like Seville? The answers to these questions provide an exciting read. Brad Hooper

Top international mystery: a hacker cracks the Vatican's security code and pleads with the Pope to save a cathedral in Seville, two of whose defenders have already met untimely deaths.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.