Better than the Da Vinci Code
Silva's The Confessor or Perez-Reverte's The Seville Communion
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has become a runaway blockbuster novel, movie, game, travel itinerary, etc., for the last several years. It’s easy to see why: it’s a fun book with a puzzle, interesting characters, and that historical archnemesis, the Catholic Church. But, once you’ve read the book, seen the movie, played the game, and visited Scotland, what else can you do to feed your Da Vinci obsession?
Luckily, Dan Brown isn’t the only one who wrote a great book with those elements. Try these books if you need more mystery, puzzles, and murders.
The Confessor, by Daniel Silva, is the third book in a series about Israeli assassin Gabriel Allon, but don’t let that stop you from reading it. It stands alone very well and will probably entice you to read the first two. Gabriel is smart, saavy, and dangerous. In The Confessor, Gabriel Allon has retired after the murders of his wife and son to live quietly as an art restorer. Gabriel's ex-boss, Ari Shamron, an Israeli spymaster a la George Smiley is far more pragmatic in his methods but idealistic in his reasons.
He involves Gabriel in the Mossad and espionage by telling him (truthfully) that Gabriel’s old friend Benjamin Stern was killed by a professional, very blond (though not quite albino), Catholic assassin who calls himself The Leopard. The essential difference between The Da Vinci Code and The Confessor is that the shadowy Catholic organization in The Confessor is fiction (as opposed to Opus Dei is The Da Vinci Code,) but the terrible secret that the Catholic Church is hiding in The Confessor is absolutely true. Silva’s epilogue will horrify you.
In The Seville Communion, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, the protagonist is a priest, Father Lorenzo Quart, who works for the Vatican’s version of the FBI and CIA. The very real Institute for External Affairs, the IEA, is under the direction of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Quart investigates several murders associated with a church in Seville, Spain. He is drawn into the politics of the city and the upper classes of society in Seville, as well as clashes between an attractive wife and her powerful husband.
The Seville Baroque church has its secrets, and Quart must determine where the treasure is and why someone is killing people for the church. On the way, he also meets a nun, Gris, who is restoring some of the art in the church. Gris and Quart are fellow introverted clerics, who deny themselves love, in an attempt to find God. Their conversations will make you wonder who is killing people and who hacked the Vatican’s computer.
If you like these books, try Great Books Like American Psycho and Great Books Like Harry Potter.
