10 | The Confessor | Reading Log 24-25

I've been working my way through Daniel Silva's series of Gabriel Allon novels, and this fourth entry has been the best one yet.

Part adventure, part spy novel, part recent history, this one follows Allon as he investigates (and attempts to avenge) a series of murders across Europe. The murders occurred as a secret group within the Catholic church attempt to keep a new pope from exposing evidence collaboration between the church and the Third Reich as it began systematically exterminating the Jews of Europe in the runup to WWII.

Although many of the events are fabricated in purpose of the story, the book is obviously meticulously researched, and includes a postscript in which Silva details the evidence that does exist to document willful blindness from some who held church power at the time, as well as the failure of a joint committee in the modern era to review documents that continue to remain out of reach in the archives of the church.

It's a sobering piece of western history that forces the reader to confront the condition of the human spirit, the machinations of institutional power, and the lengths to which the powerful are often willing to go in service of the status quo that benefits them.

Highly recommend, and now I'm going to take a break for some lighter fare: Jason Pargin's "I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom," which hit my radar when many of my favorite twitter pals began making noise about it last week. Will report back when complete.