In the StoryBlack Smoke
The conclave has not yet chosen. One cardinal remembers a different election. Sequestered in the Vatican, Matteo Valli carries an outcome no one around him can verify. Another name, another sequence of events, lending new weight to every present conversation. His memory may be a warning. It may also become a way to influence others without being able to account for his source.
Open the novel ↗A moment in the opening pages
Valli understood what de la Fuente wanted to avoid. The press associated several cardinals with specific diplomatic positions. Samuel Madaki, archbishop of Abuja, had argued for years for a stronger public role for the Holy See in civil crises. Leone Bardi, a former substitute at the Secretariat of State, favored discreet negotiation instead. Giving the electors an Orsena file as they voted would introduce a question no one could entirely separate from the men who embodied…Read the excerpt ↗