, several hours on board of ferries as well as secluded beaches gearing up better with enough holiday reading. I chose this summer to Matins by Arturo Perez-Reverte , the thickest book on the pile of loan my friend L. and I have enjoyed reading very much. A warning is appropriate introduction, however: As the title suggests , this is as it were a Catholic crime, and who are religious, but above all political machinations within the Roman Curia irrelevant or uninteresting place, which will be bored Matins passages as bad. For the book draws its power in large part from the collision just this intrigue with the reality of the faithful out there in the world. His hero Lorenzo Quart is a priest and an agent of the Pope's secret service, an institution for the "Christian" a very inappropriate adjective. He was sent to Seville to investigate a disturbing-curious history: in the middle of the city is a decaying church to be torn down, defended the will of an old priest and a small band of true believers - and apparently quite defend even himself knows, in any event are at the last time two people on something suspicious manner in the church died. The story is the Holy Father himself been brought to my attention via a message from a hacker (alias Matins) on his home computer, and therefore should now look the best man in the Vatican on the spot.
The sounds all a bit contrived by the hair, I know, and indeed it is: The Search for the hacker, which gives the book title and plot turns out to be ultimately as unimportant. This is not Whodunit . Rather, it is (on the large, fragrant stage of Seville) is a finely orchestrated ballet of a pretty colorful cast. The old church of Nuestra Señora de las Lagrimas connects them all: those who want to demolish them - the Archbishop and a cunning upstart unsavory of bankers including factotum - and those they serve and protect: the rebellious Padre Ferro and his colleagues, who in addition to Vicar and restorer also Macarena Bruner, the no-longer-really-wife is one of the banker. And as you move in a historical setting, connect to these characters in a parallel plot, two unhappy lovers from long ago. Pérez-Reverte follows Lorenzo Quart through the streets and palaces of Seville, confronted him with these actors, it looks here and there a thread of understanding and link catch look in vain, it can slow the trust of certain people and see the hostility of others. Ultimately, nothing scientifically correct and bureaucratic, distant education: the ruthless when necessary priest, his measure shirts with with clerical collar like a knight's armor entangled himself with head and heart in the case, should investigate it, and is the fate of the old church his own.
All of Pérez-Reverte develops fine and yet colorful, most with great pleasure telling. To bunt him is only the would-be thieves Trio get that is to intervene on behalf of the Secretary of the banker in history and how a changing accumulation of clichés daherpromeniert. But when he and the discussion on the role of the church in the world and engagement with the agonizing Shadows of the past of Father Ferro, Lorenz Quart Macarena Bruner and brings together, is of a wise intensity.
Product: Arturo Perez-Reverte, The Seville Communion . Novel. From the English by Claudia Schmitt. Munich, btb 2007th ISBN 978-3-442-73721-5. The original appeared in 1995 under the (much more appropriate) title "La piel del tambor" in Madrid in Alfaguara (ISBN 978-84-204-7206-5).