Windswept House: A Vatican Novel

About this book

In a novel hailed as one of the most powerful books of the decade (Florida Times-Union) faith and betrayal power and conspiracy collide both inside and outside the walls of the Vatican. The Cold War has ended. With a scope and daring not possible until now an unlikely international alliance of top-level political financial and religious interests sees the way clear at last to its ultimate goal: the establishment of a single global society. Utopia. These are men with nothing in common but immense power and a towering ambition for still more. With world unity and prosperity as their sloganand with betrayal scandal and murder as their ready weaponsthey have the means and the will to capture as their own the perfect vessel for their plans: the oldest wiliest and most stable political machine in the world. The Vatican. At the vortex of this lethal struggle stands the embattled Pope a geopolitical genius whose elimination is the short-term solution to a long-term goal and two American brothers Paul and Christian Gladstone one a lawyer and the other a priest who appear to be the perfect pawns. One falls prey to the sharp teeth of greed for power. The other will become one of the Slavic Pontiffs closest allies . . . and will discover the darkest secrets at the very heart of papal Rome. From America to Europe to Russia in broad landscapes and clandestine corridors a rich and varied castpresidents and politicos simple saints and savvy sinners popes and pope-makersclash with one another amid dramatic and sometimes bloody events that will affect the destiny of every person alive today.