From Publishers Weekly
Black magic and thuggery assist a Machiavellian priest's ascent to the papal throne in this predictable but gleefully subversive modern gothic. Xavier Torturo, a quiet but ambitious seminarian in rural Italy, gets entrusted with an ancient occult text about the translation of powers from the dead to the living. Soon thereafter, a relic of Saint Anthony disappears from its shrine, and Xavier - coincidentally? - shows the power to heal by the laying on of hands. Combining his newly developed talent for miracles with secular skills of blackmail and manipulation, Torturo secures his ticket to the Vatican, where his underlings' excesses and his own past indiscretions ultimately precipitate his swift and gruesome downfall. Connell paints a scabrous portrait of the Vatican as a site of absolute power that corrupts absolutely.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Descrption:
In 1263, when the vault containing the body of St. Anthony was opened, thirty-two years after its original interment, the flesh had turned to dust, but the tongue was in a perfect state of preservation. For almost eight-hundred years it was kept mounted on a pin. But now it has been stolen. Padua, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome. . . . Father Torturo, the neo-decadent anti-hero, moves through a modern Italy reeking of incense and filth. In an adventure stained with magic and garnished with cruelty, he travels on an ambitious journey to popedom, where the only laws that restrain him are those of his own artistic taste.
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Black magic and thuggery assist a Machiavellian priest's ascent to the papal throne in this predictable but gleefully subversive modern gothic. Xavier Torturo, a quiet but ambitious seminarian in rural Italy, gets entrusted with an ancient occult text about the translation of powers from the dead to the living. Soon thereafter, a relic of Saint Anthony disappears from its shrine, and Xavier - coincidentally? - shows the power to heal by the laying on of hands. Combining his newly developed talent for miracles with secular skills of blackmail and manipulation, Torturo secures his ticket to the Vatican, where his underlings' excesses and his own past indiscretions ultimately precipitate his swift and gruesome downfall. Connell paints a scabrous portrait of the Vatican as a site of absolute power that corrupts absolutely.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Descrption:
In 1263, when the vault containing the body of St. Anthony was opened, thirty-two years after its original interment, the flesh had turned to dust, but the tongue was in a perfect state of preservation. For almost eight-hundred years it was kept mounted on a pin. But now it has been stolen. Padua, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome. . . . Father Torturo, the neo-decadent anti-hero, moves through a modern Italy reeking of incense and filth. In an adventure stained with magic and garnished with cruelty, he travels on an ambitious journey to popedom, where the only laws that restrain him are those of his own artistic taste.
Genre: Urban Fantasy
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