That scenario will be of interest to those convinced that the Illuminati run the world. Others may want to wait for the...
A homosexual cabal. A drugged pope. Conspiratorial cardinals. Evil Swiss Germans. Murder.
Thus the ingredients of this innuendo-rich true-crime tale, set among the gilded halls of Saint Peter’s. On May 4, 1998, a Swiss Guard lance corporal named Cedric Tornay stormed into the Vatican City apartment of his commandant, Colonel Alois Estermann, shot Estermann and his wife dead, and then killed himself. In a note to his mother shortly beforehand, Tornay wrote, “I must do this service for all the guards remaining as well as to the Catholic church. I have sworn to give my life for the pope and this is what I am doing.” Vatican officials quickly covered up the murder, saying little other than that Tornay had had a cyst on the brain and that traces of cannabis had been found in his bloodstream. The heavy in this cover-up—for so London Sunday Times correspondent Follain (Jackal, 1998, etc.) considers it to be—was wily Vatican press secretary Joaquin Navarro-Valls, by his lights a worthy descendant of Torquemada and Richelieu. But Novarro-Valls was not alone: after all, Follain suggests, Pope John Paul II knew of the murder-suicide but did nothing to determine why the young, decorated guard had killed the man who only that afternoon had been promoted to commander of the Swiss Guard. And no wonder: according to one of Follain’s informants, “The Holy Father is so ill he’s become a prisoner of the Curia,” a religious Mafia if ever there were one—or so we’re to believe. Follain argues that Tornay and Estermann had had an affair, that Tornay had complained loudly and frequently of the laxness of security and the ridiculousness of rules that prevented the Swiss Guard from carrying guns while dressed in their striped-pantaloon finery, and that in all events a heavy animosity between the French and German Swiss who make up the security unit keeps all involved from doing their jobs effectively. All understandable motives for murder, one supposes, but not necessarily strong evidence for malfeasance and conspiracy at the highest levels of the Church.
That scenario will be of interest to those convinced that the Illuminati run the world. Others may want to wait for the movie.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-620954-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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