Conclave: The bestselling Richard and Judy Book Club thriller

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That lack of drama is telling and turns what might be a good story into a rather pedestrian ramble through the arcane bureaucracy of the Vatican. Harris clearly has a strong impulse to educate and inform: what little I know about aqueducts and volcanoes, for example, for better or worse, derives almost entirely from his novel Pompeii, and there is doubtless a whole generation who owe their knowledge of the second world war not to John Keegan or Martin Gilbert, or even to World War II in Colour running endlessly on the Discovery channel, but rather to Fatherland and Enigma.

It starts off well with an interesting premise about the conclave, but half way through it features an unnecessary nasty act and the end didn't feel clever so much as political. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Harris is not in the business of messing about with his readers, and usually gives sensible clues – no impossible Agatha Christie twists here, but although I realised there was a significance in an event described (no spoilers) I couldn’t work out what it was. Robert Harris is the author of ten bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, and An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

The pope has died, descriptions of a peoples pope, a pope who refused to live in the grandeur of the Vatican apartments, point to this representing our current Pope, Francis.

The clandestine nature of a Papal vote offers the novelist a degree of imaginative freedom as there are no visible campaigns, no political conventions, no Twitter wars and no television cameras. But it is the kind of book one must approach with an open mind, any pre conceived notions will spoil it for you. What starts out as a usual process for choosing a new pope, soon develops into a plot with numerous complications, unraveling secrets long hidden, and just when you think you have it all figured out, a new twist to the storyline is thrown in. Like its predecessors, "Conclave" transcends that tired genre with its careful working out of the moral complexities in a highly charged political event of great import - in this case, the election of a new Pope - and its consideration of the largest issues involved - in this case, the conflict between temporal and spiritual power. While the intricacies of institutional procedures may be fascinating to Robert Harris, they don’t necessarily provide the drama and entertainment demanded by the readers of fiction.Never expected to find myself completely enthralled by this inside look of what it takes to elect our next pope. He is the Dean of the Cardinals, and as such it is his job to make sure that he is on top of everything involved in the Conclave, the transition from the now deceased, much loved Pope, to the newly elected Pope-to-be.

Conclave is fun but ultimately proves so silly that it just can't stand comparison with his earlier work. It didn’t help that by a third of the way through the story it was inevitable who the successful candidate was going to be, and by half way through the book I had spotted the twist in the tail that was to come.I would rather poke my eyes out than sit there for endless hours without being able to read which probably explains why I am not a Cardinal, that and I am not Catholic, male or speak Latin. As he bent to kiss the forehead he noticed a faint smudge of white toothpaste at the left corner of the mouth, and caught the smell of peppermint and the hint of some floral shampoo. When all the characters were introduced and the actual process was underway, the religious aspirations of many of the cardinals become more apparent and my intrigue was further piqued. The twists keep coming, some visible from a mile away, some genuine surprises, but it’s the final one, saved for the closing pages, that stretches credibility to breaking point.

I have read other books about the Conclave so I had the basics down but Harris made it sing in a way that other books haven't.Note that “Low” is not used as a pejorative, as the two terms simply describe different attitudes, forms, or theologies of worship. Men of God, be they priests, Monsignors, Cardinals, or the Pope himself are, after all, men and by nature, not without sin. I had only read the first 20 pages the day before, but I could not put this book down once I picked it up again. He lowered himself carefully to his knees on the brightly polished parquet floor, cupped his hands together in prayer and rested them on the side of the counterpane.