The Vatican Candidate: A Harper & Blake Mystery
April 1945: Europe is in ruins, and Berlin is burning. As the Red Army closes in on the last few blocks surrounding the Fuhrerbunker, a famous aviatrix lands her light aircraft in the center of the shattered German capital. Two days later she takes off again. With her is a man called Heinrich Bechmann, SS mass killer and personal bodyguard of the German chancellor Adolf Hitler--and with Bechmann is a file of documents.
Fast-forward to the fall of 2018, when Pope Francis announces that he intends to open the Vatican Secret Archives to researchers and historians investigating relations between his predecessor, Pope Pius XII, and the Nazi regime. A week later, masked gunmen kill five people at an isolated Jesuit retreat in the mountains of Sicily. And two weeks after that, the body of a celebrated British historian is discovered in a beach house on Long Island. Aiden Blake, ex-Royal Marine and brother of the dead historian, believes there is a mysterious link between these events, stretching across seventy-five years of history.
He's right--and history itself will provide the clues. The trail will lead him and his brother's New York-based researcher, Hannah Harper, across the Atlantic to the hidden bunkers of Berlin, a Gothic castle in South Tyrol, Rome, Sicily, and deep into the past in a bid to find his brother's killers--and expose a neo-Fascist plot to kill the present pope and replace him with someone more conducive to the party's own political views and ambitions.
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London-based Paul Bryers is also the author, under the pseudonym Seth Hunter, of the highly acclaimed Nathan Peake novels: a series of naval adventures set against the canvas of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Bryers won an English arts council award for Best First Novel for his political thriller Hollow Target, and his next thriller, In a Pig's Ear, was named as one of the Guardian's best six novels of the year. He has written and directed many historical dramas for television, radio, and the theatre. You can connect with him online at www.paulbryers.com.
Thrillingly plotted, rigorously researched, and told with sizzling energy and style.
--TP Fielden, author of the Miss Dimont and Guy Harford MysteriesBryers muscles up his renowned storytelling skills to deliver a smoothly written page-turner that smashingly delivers on the literary, historical, and emotional fronts. Together, Aiden Blake and researcher Hannah Harper follow a trail that leads them from secret Nazi bunkers to the mountains of Italy, racing against time to solve the mystery and prevent a deadly conspiracy from coming to fruition. What a ride!
--James R. Benn, author of Proud Sorrows and other Billy Boyle WWII mysteriesPaul Bryers' writing shines in this atmospheric, Ludlumesque thriller. The Vatican Candidate is a cinematic blend of history and intrigue that kept me on the edge of my seat into the dark hours of the night. Very much looking forward to his next books!
--Sara Ackerman, author of The Codebreaker's Secret, Radar Girls, Red Sky Over Hawaii, The Lieutenant's Nurse, and Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers"As a storyteller, Bryers is superb."
-- "Time Out""An elegant and unearthly literary mystery told lyrically by Bryers, a careful stylist who selects even the simplest words with the discriminating eye of a shore walker gathering small, smooth stones washed up from the sea."
-- "The New York Times""Bryers brings a civil and historical tone to his New England tale of terror; think Stephen King without the hobgoblins or Masterpiece Theatre with claws . . . a complex, compelling mystery."
-- "USA Today""A lovely literary thriller with a real edge to it that manages to combine American history and contemporary themes with elegance and immediacy."
-- "Toronto Star""Bryers peers into the places of the soul where fear resides. . . . The Prayer of the Bone has the pacing and cinematic flair of Stephen King and even King's native Maine as its psycho-setting."
-- "The Philadelphia Inquirer"
