Conclave: The bestselling Richard and Judy Book Club thriller

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My more than fifty years of diminishing devotion as a Roman Catholic, including my years as a junior seminarian, preparing to study for the priesthood, enabled me to understand, empathise with and enjoy what was going on! As Dean of the College of Cardinals, Lomeli must organise the election of the next pope, which is only a few weeks hence. The Prefect of the Papal Household had sounded so panicked on the telephone, Lomeli was expecting to be met by a scene of pandemonium. And, indeed, after a few more moments, Tremblay sighed – a long, theatrical, almost ecstatic exhalation. It starts off well with an interesting premise about the conclave, but half way through it features an unnecessary nasty act and the end didn't feel clever so much as political.

At its roots this is as political a process as the election of a new leader of a political party would be, with the various candidates jockeying for position, some more ruthlessly than others. Lomeli uncovers great issues with two of the front runners, whose power dwindles as the Dean uses the Constitution to keep the Conclave on track.

Lomeli thought he was about to deliver a blessing, but instead the gesture was a signal to two of his assistants from the Apostolic Camera, who entered the bedroom and helped him stand. The twists keep coming, some visible from a mile away, some genuine surprises, but it’s the final one, saved for the closing pages, that stretches credibility to breaking point.

Never expected to find myself completely enthralled by this inside look of what it takes to elect our next pope. It was still unread when I got home, and I further put off tackling it partly I think because I started watching (and not particularly enjoying) the Young Pope series on TV. It takes us through the process of electing a new pope, with detailed descriptions of the procedures, rituals and places, however, it also reminds us that participants of conclave may be driven by forces that are material rather than spiritual. Harris clearly has a strong impulse to educate and inform: what little I know about aqueducts and volcanoes, for example, for better or worse, derives almost entirely from his novel Pompeii, and there is doubtless a whole generation who owe their knowledge of the second world war not to John Keegan or Martin Gilbert, or even to World War II in Colour running endlessly on the Discovery channel, but rather to Fatherland and Enigma.The book was interesting in a religious historical perceptive and does deliver a great read about one of our Historical religious institutes. The action moves at a breakneck pace and, with each passing ballot, the reader is keen to discover who’s up and who’s down. A captivating and intelligent thriller that takes us inside the Vatican for an election of the new pope. Its interior light was on, the windscreen wipers scudding back and forth, close enough for him to be able to make out the faces of both the driver and his assistant.