Sacred Lies

In their second suspense novel (after Mortal Sins ), Edouard and Ware offer a hodgepodge of outlandish plot lines and stereotypical characters. Undercover CIA agent Romany Chase coordinates an international art exhibit in Rome in order to find out which high-ranking Vatican official is involved in an art-forgery scheme. Is it fat, greedy Cardinal Vittorio DeLario, rumored to be the true power in the Vatican? Or blond, muscular Father Julian Morrow, the mysterious Jesuit whom Romany has orders to seduce? Before long, our beautiful, brilliant heroine is torn between the priest, who may be her enemy, and her sometime lover David ben Haar, a brutally handsome Israeli secret agent. The plot doesn't thicken so much as proliferate. Art forgery leads to a neo-Nazi plot to conquer Europe, Vatican ties to Adolf Hitler, an evil Nazi known as the Black Baron and Romany's bizarre resemblance to the Baron's dead fiancee. All of this has something to do with the mysterious illness of Romany's mother, the ancient Templars, the sacred bones of the Virgin Mary and the various protagonists' utterly mysterious pasts, which the authors provide instead of character development. Bogged down in numbing intrigue and sledgehammer plot manipulations, this romantic thriller isn't even fun. (Feb.)