The Mission

About this book

A POWERFUL NEW NOVEL THAT FUSES ADVENTURE AND EXCITEMENT WITH THE CLASHING FORCES OF HISTORY RELIGION AND POLITICS. Set in South America in the mid eighteenth century The Mission tells the story of Rodrigo Mendoza a cool callous soldier of fortune and slave-trader who in the heat of the moment murders his own brother. In his anguish he turns to God and becomes a lay brother at a Jesuit mission deep in the heart of the jungle just as the conflict between Church and State is escalating. The mission is threatened with closure and Mendoza is faced with an agonizing choice: to obey the papal edict and abandon the native Indians to the jungle and the slave-traders or to fight... In a superb and tragic climax the vital issues of faith sin and individual conscience are magnificently realized. As the portrait of a mans search for expiation set against the ruthless realism of state politics The Mission is exciting exotic and brutally compelling.