God's Spy

A routine plot doesn't do justice to the intriguing premise of this debut thriller, a bestseller in Spain, about a serial killer stalking the cardinals poised to vote on Pope John Paul II's successor. Young, attractive Paola Dicanti, an inspector in an Italian violent crime unit and an FBI-trained profiler, is summoned to a church in Vatican City where a cardinal's mutilated corpse has been discovered. To her outrage, Dicanti learns that the victim is the second in a series, and that the identity of the killer—a pedophilic priest with a history of violence, Victor Karosky—is known to a new and mysterious ally, Anthony Fowler, a former priest and American intelligence operative. The cat-and-mouse game between the police and Karosky is nothing new, while Gómez-Jurado's use of the sex scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic church is sensational rather than sensitive. American readers may be amused that Bush administration figure John Negroponte plays the part of shadowy backstage conspirator. (Apr.)