The mosaic virus.

Smith, Charles Michael

by Carlos T. Mock, MD

Floricanto Press. 268 pages, $24.95

This is a medical, religious, and political thriller all rolled into one. Carlos Mock has set the novel in 1983 when 37 priests (and counting) in the U.S. have died mysteriously. The Vatican and the FBI each dispatches an investigator, the former a Jesuit priest from Argentina, the latter a female agent with whom, coincidentally enough, the priest was once romantically involved. Needless to say, these feelings are revived as they sleuth together. A key component of the mystery is the 1967 death of Francis Cardinal Spellman, who in this account is a Jewish convert to Catholicism. Spellman (ne Jacob Goldman) became the secretary and translator to Bishop Siri (later a cardinal himself). Spellman's identity is found out and he's turned over to the Nazis. This is done to enforce the Pope's neutrality decree and to counter an SS chief's accusation that the Vatican was "a friend of the Jews." After Spellman's release from a concentration camp, he's made a cardinal as a way for the Church to assuage its guilt. He's later exposed as a homosexual and a pedophile, a matter the Church tries to hush up. Could Spellman's sexual secret be linked to the death of several gay priests? That is the question our two sleuths must confront. Next there arises the intriguing possibility that the Church is implicated in the spread of a biological agent. Unfortunately, Mock's handling of the story doesn't fulfill its promise. Indeed, the book is a literary mess: the plot is too complicated and at times confusing, and the characters are so poorly drawn that one is hard-pressed to care about any of them. One senses that the author doesn't have a thorough knowledge of Vatican politics and protocol, as the goings-on at the Vatican stretch all credibility. Perhaps a stronger editorial hand could have saved this book.