[Sanctus ] might turn out to be the next great cliffhanger conspiracy thriller.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sanctus
If you like your secrets deeply hidden and your action breakneck, then Toyne’s sophomore thriller is just the ticket. . . . As in his debut, Toyne delivers a gripping, intricate story of religious and political intrigue that’s sweeping yet somehow intimate and very personal. Wow.
When you read Sanctus , you’ll see just how frightening, ruthless and relentlessly entertaining an order of monks can be. Haunting in the best way.
Hard to think of it as a debut, better to think of it as the beginning of a massive new adventure, and a so-long to Dan Brown. . . .
The Daily Mirror (UK) on Sanctus
The middle volume of Toyne’s Sanctus trilogy (after 2011’s Sanctus) fails to deliver on the promise of the first. In the ancient Turkish city of Ruin, hostility to Catholicism has prompted someone to set off explosives at the Citadel, “the oldest continually inhabited structure on earth and the original center of the Catholic Church,” and the resulting damage has led to the first ever appearance in public of any of the Citadel’s occupants. Speculation runs rampant that the survivors of the bombing possess the real secret of the sacrament, another church-foundation-rattling possibility that, unfortunately for the Vatican, coincides with another, more mundane crisis. Cardinal Secretary of State Clementi has learned that trillions of dollars have disappeared from the church’s coffers and hangs his hope for a solution on the secrets of Ruin. Readers should be prepared for less than engaging protagonists and trite setups (e.g., one character avoids being murdered by pure chance). Agent: Alice Saunders, LAW Agency. (June)
If you like your secrets deeply hidden and your action breakneck, then Toyne’s sophomore thriller is just the ticket. . . . As in his debut, Toyne delivers a gripping, intricate story of religious and political intrigue that’s sweeping yet somehow intimate and very personal. Wow.” — Booklist (starred review) on The Key
“[Sanctus ] might turn out to be the next great cliffhanger conspiracy thriller.” — Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sanctus
“Hard to think of it as a debut, better to think of it as the beginning of a massive new adventure, and a so-long to Dan Brown. . . .” — The Daily Mirror (UK) on Sanctus
“When you read Sanctus , you’ll see just how frightening, ruthless and relentlessly entertaining an order of monks can be. Haunting in the best way.” — Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle
“Remarkable . . . Its ‘just one more page, one more chapter’ urgency keeps you reading into the night, and the final revelation of the Citadel’s secret is haunting.” — Library Journal (starred review) on Sanctus
“In British author Toyne’s stellar first in a projected trilogy, a thriller in the Dan Brown tradition . . . The truly mind-boggling revelation will leave astounded readers eager for the next installment.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Sanctus
“Well-written, fast-paced and delivered with an admirable economy of words . . . an edge-of-the-seat story filled with action and adventure, as well as a puzzle that the main characters must somehow put together before the world simply disappears. . . . [A] taut thriller.” — Kirkus Reviews on The Key
Hard to think of it as a debut, better to think of it as the beginning of a massive new adventure, and a so-long to Dan Brown. . . .
[Sanctus ] might turn out to be the next great cliffhanger conspiracy thriller.
If you like your secrets deeply hidden and your action breakneck, then Toyne’s sophomore thriller is just the ticket. . . . As in his debut, Toyne delivers a gripping, intricate story of religious and political intrigue that’s sweeping yet somehow intimate and very personal. Wow.
Former British television writer, producer and director Toyne cranks up the drama with the second entry in a conspiracy thriller series. Taking up where the first volume (Sanctus , 2011) left off, New Jersey news reporter Liv Adamsen awakens to find herself hospitalized in the small Turkish town of Ruin. Liv is not alone: Kathryn Mann and a monk from the Citadel are also recovering from injuries sustained when fleeing the mysterious fortress. However, there are forces at hand determined to destroy all three, and that is something Kathryn's son, Gabriel, cannot allow to happen. Gabriel helps Liv escape and find her way back home to the U.S., then begins to look for a way to return to the Citadel, which is now seemingly under assault from nature itself. Blighted trees and a dying garden have spread their disease to the humans who occupy the Catholic fortress, and no one knows how to stop what appears to be an impending worldwide catastrophe. As the Vatican's moneyman, Cardinal Secretary Clementi, plots to eliminate Liv and her co-conspirators, Gabriel forges an alliance to help fend off what appears to be the realization of the End of Days. As he battles to save Liv from a terrible fate, Gabriel finds that one of the most important events of his life was a lie and that allies exist in places he would never have suspected. Toyne's first novel, Sanctus , set up the story of the Citadel and the mysterious thing it guards. Well-written, fast-paced and delivered with an admirable economy of words, this book offers an edge-of-the-seat story filled with action and adventure, as well as a puzzle that the main characters must somehow put together before the world simply disappears. If the book has a flaw, it's that it doesn't stand alone, and readers who have not progressed from the first book to the second will spend the first half trying to figure out what's happening. Reading the initial book in the series first makes this taut thriller much more satisfying.
