Intrigue reigns at the Vatican as the world’s cardinals gather to elect a new pope. Narrator Roy McMillan takes full advantage of the opportunity to display his range. While not strictly miraculous, his transformation of Cardinal Lomeli, the protagonist, from dispirited to Spirit-filled is most certainly charismatic. As dean of the College of Cardinals, Lomeli must preside over the conclave, with all its politics. Through each crisis managed and decision made, McMillan turns Lomeli into a man with a calling. But what makes McMillan’s performance exemplary is that while navigating Lomeli’s transformation, he also undertakes those of a host of cardinals, including hard-liner Italian Tedesco, savvy Canadian Tremblay, dynamic Nigerian Adeyemi, and gentle Filipino Benítez. McMillan’s performance is a triumph, as is the book itself. K.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Robert Harris's novels are wonderfully tart confections of political conspiracy, opportunism, cynicism, and vainglory. He has found his material in ancient Rome, France of the Dreyfus Affair, Bletchley Park, a (counter-factual) victorious Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, a rogue hedge fund, and the so-called War on Terror. Conclave, his eleventh fictional engagement with high-stakes intrigue, goes straight for the mother lode: the Vatican.

It is 2018, and a pope who resembles the present one in humility, charity, and tolerance has died unexpectedly in his sleep. Cardinals from all over the world are assembling in Rome to choose his successor. The media are slavering, "reporters and photographers . . . calling out to the cardinals, like tourists at a zoo trying to persuade the animals to come closer." Armed guards, snipers, and surface-to-air missiles have been deployed against the threat of terrorist attack. Carpenters and technicians are preparing the Sistine Chapel for the electoral proceedings, and a number of cardinals begin to position themselves to step into the papal shoes. Factions and coalitions emerge in different permutations: progressive and reactionary parties, combining and splitting with the Italian, Third World, and North American contingents. Beneath it all, churning relentlessly, are the forces of what we may call the deep Curia.

We see events through the eyes of the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Romeli, an old, modest, and sincerely devout man whose "guilty recreation" is, appropriately enough as it turns out, reading detective fiction. It is his duty to officiate over the conclave and assure that it runs smoothly — which I'm happy to say it does not. A speedy election is desired lest it appear that the Church is falling into terminal discord. But perhaps it is. Romeli learns that, toward the end of his life, the late pope had lost his faith in the Church and, along with that shocker, had made some exceedingly strange decisions. On the very day of his death, he had met privately with one powerhouse cardinal, an aspirant to the papacy, and removed him from all his offices — then died before making the decision effective. What was that all about? And will this last act come out in the conclave? Furthermore, the old pontiff had also appointed a new cardinal whose existence had not been suspected until he arrives on the scene. What's going on here?

Before unleashing the answers to these crucial question, Harris gives us a few splendidly satirical pictures of the workings of the Vatican, not least in the matter of ecclesiastical pelf. There is the American cardinal "who might come from New York and look like a Wall Street banker" but is not at all up to the job of straightening out the financial management of his department. As one old Italian cardinal remarks to Romeli, he would "never have given the job to an American. They are so innocent: they have no idea how bribery works." We are also introduced to a dead ringer for the real Cardinal Bertone, whom the actual Pope Francis has censured for his extravagance in knocking together two Vatican apartments to create a vast luxury pad for himself.

As politicking commences and picks up heat, secrets from the past erupt to bury the candidacies of a couple of cardinals. Harris, the writer, loves the maneuverings and machinations of power- mongers, but he is just as superb here in showing men of true faith wrestling with the legitimacy of their own wishes and trying to fathom God's will as events unfold. He goes so far as to suggest the presence of the Holy Spirit when Romeli discards a prepared homily to deliver an impromptu one of a completely different tenor before the assembled cardinals. It is a speech that sets the conclave on a most unexpected path.

I know this is all rather obscure — that's the Vatican for you — but I don't wish to reveal the plot elements that keep the book going against the countervailing force of Harris's unremitting attention to rules of order and the arcana of ceremonial habiliments and accessories. Just when the story is getting a good head of suspense going, some matter of procedural housekeeping is explained in detail, or our old friend Cardinal Romeli starts putting on or taking off his choir dress, a great assemblage that includes scarlet cassock with thirty-three buttons ("one button for each year in Christ's life"), cincture with tassel hanging midway up the left calf, rochet, mozzetta, zuchetta, pectoral cross, skull cap, and biretta.

Well before the end of the novel, it becomes clear where things are heading — even if certain details are a bit of a surprise. All in all, Conclave is not one of Harris's best works; still, the political aspects of papal selection, the pressure of the "news cycle," and the wheeling and dealing and backstabbing are excellently realized and put forward with a good deal of sardonic wit. This is where Harris excels and why one waits so impatiently for his next offering.

Katherine A. Powers reviews books widely and has been a finalist for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle. She is the editor of Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942–1963.

Reviewer: Katherine A. Powers

09/05/2016
Thriller Award–winner Harris (Dictator) successfully dramatizes the selection of a new pope. In the near future, the pontiff dies suddenly of a heart attack, and the Vatican leadership works fast to ensure an orderly transition. The process is conveyed from the perspective of Cardinal Jacopo Lomeli, the dean of the College of Cardinals, a rational and sympathetic figure who a month earlier sought permission to retire to a religious order. As the cardinals gather from around the world to vote, factions quickly develop around the leading contenders, including Joshua Adeyemi of Nigeria, who’s seeking to become the first black pope, and Lomeli’s successor as the Vatican’s secretary of state, Aldo Bellini. Bellini gives Lomeli a glimpse at the hidden turmoil at the Vatican when he reveals that on the day of the Holy Father’s death, the dying pope confided to Bellini that he had lost faith in the church. As the maneuvering for command continues, Lomeli must try to steer a path toward consensus. This is another impressive outing from an extremely versatile author. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management. (Nov.)

Harris has written a gripping, smart book. . . . This could become the Catholic version of The Satanic Verses.”
—Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times Book Review
 
“Splendid . . . Harris does not disappoint. . . . Whether you have faith in God, the Church, or neither, Conclave will keep you richly entertained.”
—Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post
 
“Triumphant . . . I am about to use a word I have never knowingly  used in any review of any book ever. During my 25-odd years of writing about books I have done my best to avoid clichés, slipshod summaries, oracular pronouncements and indeed anything else that might appear emblazoned on a book jacket. Nonetheless, there is only one possible word to describe Robert Harris’s new novel, and it is this: unputdownable.”
—Ian Sansom, The Guardian
 
“A gripping read in the authentic Harris mould . . . Conclave, though, is more than a crime novel, it is also a psychological and political thriller . . . The more one looks, the more cunning the book seems. Conclave is a triumphant addition to Harris’s acclaimed output.”
—David Grylls, The Sunday Times
 
“A gripping read. There are plenty of plot twists, revelations and high politicking to hook readers in. . . . An ecclesiastical version of House of Cards . . . Conclave is admirably brisk—and its final twist is great fun.”
—Robbie Millen, The Times
 
“A slick and fast-paced thriller . . . This entertaining and satisfying page-turner tells the tense story of the Machiavellian machinations of ambitious men, locked in a power-struggle that can only end in a puff of white smoke and power.”
—Huston Gilmore,  The Daily Express
 
“Ambition and intrigues are familiar ground to a former political journalist . . . gripping.”
—Rachel Cooke, The Observer
 
“Fast-written and suspenseful, it’s elegantly written entertainment from a first-rate storyteller.”
—Simon Humphreys, The Mail on Sunday
 
“Despite papal fiction being such a crowded church, Harris, in Conclave, contrives a twist involving the number of cardinal-electors that seems to me completely new.”
—Mark Lawson, The Guardian
 
“The novel begins to grip like a vice and manages to convey all the drama of an election without resorting to melodrama. He pulls off the difficult trick of making his cardinals seem no less holy for all their human foibles and, although this ruminative and low-key novel is very different from Harris’s other books, it is well up to their standard.”
—Charlotte Heathcote, Sunday Express
 
“The smartest bestselling author at work today . . . [Conclave is] a modern-day story that explores the power, glory and skullduggery behind the process of electing a new pope.”
—Richard T. Kelly, Esquire (UK)
 
“Another high-class Harris thriller.”
—James Walton, Reader’s Digest (UK)
 
“An impressive outing from an extremely versatile author.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Robert Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland to An Officer and a Spy, scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies....An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation." –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Intrigue reigns at the Vatican as the world’s cardinals gather to elect a new pope. Narrator Roy McMillan takes full advantage of the opportunity to display his range. While not strictly miraculous, his transformation of Cardinal Lomeli, the protagonist, from dispirited to Spirit-filled is most certainly charismatic. As dean of the College of Cardinals, Lomeli must preside over the conclave, with all its politics. Through each crisis managed and decision made, McMillan turns Lomeli into a man with a calling. But what makes McMillan’s performance exemplary is that while navigating Lomeli’s transformation, he also undertakes those of a host of cardinals, including hard-liner Italian Tedesco, savvy Canadian Tremblay, dynamic Nigerian Adeyemi, and gentle Filipino Benítez. McMillan’s performance is a triumph, as is the book itself. K.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

★ Sept. 7, 2016
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.” An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.