"Conclave" by Robert Harris

As Dean of the College of Cardinals, Jacopo Lomeli has to organise the election of the next pope. Packed with authentic detail, Conclave charts the intrigues as the secrets and sins of the front-runners knock them one-by-one out of the race to leave them with perhaps the least likely candidate.

Although the twists and turns are perhaps slightly predictable (despite the author's obvious skill in misdirection) and although the suspension of disbelief is challenged by the incredible unlikelihood of the ending, this book is so grounded in reality that it could almost be a documentary rather than fiction.

Another great Vatican-based thriller is The Fifth Gospel by Ian Caldwell.

It's been made into a movie which I review here.

Selected quotes:

• "As with sleep, the more one desired meaningful prayer, the more elusive it became.” (Ch 1)
• “Once, God explained all mysteries. Now He has been usurped by conspiracy theorists. They are the heretics of the age.” (Ch 1)
• “The vices of courtiers all down the ages - the sins of vanity and intrigue and of malice and gossip.” (Ch 2)
• “The one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainly is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.” (Ch 5)
• “Faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt.” (Ch 5)
• “Let us pray that the Lord will grant us a Pope who doubts ... Let him grant us a Pope who sins, and asks forgiveness, and carries on.” (Ch 5)
• “The television producers would be able to spool through their tapes of the ceremony and find the new Pope at exactly this moment, placing his hand on the Gospel, and then his elevation would seem inevitable ... viewed down the long majestic gallery of hindsight, each one shone with the aura of destiny.” (Ch 5)
• “The United Kingdom - that godless isle of apostasy.” (Ch 12)

A good read. 

I first read this in September 2017 and more recently in April 2025. It has 378 pages

It was first published by Hutchinson in 2016

My paperback edition was issued by Penguin in 2024

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

Other Robert Harris books reviewed in this blog:

• The Ghost: a well-crafted political thriller about a writer hired to ghost the memoirs of an ex-Prime Minister
• The Second Sleep: dystopian fiction
• V2: will the RAF pinpoint the launch site of the V2 rockets in WWII?