The Secret Cardinal
Tom Grace, 2007
Vanguard Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781593154844
Summary
Inspired by true events, masterful storyteller Tom Grace delivers his most provocative novel yet.
When Ex-Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny is invited to Rome to consult on the functioning of the Vatican Library, he is still grieving the death of his wife and son and welcomes the distraction of the seemingly simple assignment.
But Pope Leo XIV has a startlingly different task in mind for him. In a private audience, Kilkenny learns of an unreported atrocity committed against the underground Church in China and its link to Yin Daoming, the long-imprisoned Bishop of Shanghai who has served thirty years of a life sentence in a Chinese laogai for refusing to renounce the Church of Rome. The aging pope then reveals the dangerous truth about Bishop Yin, a secret that he has kept for over twenty years. Decades of diplomacy have failed to end China’s persecution of the Catholics loyal to the pope, or to free Bishop Yin. The pope wants Yin free and asks Kilkenny to devise a plan to accomplish this seemingly impossible task.
With help from the U.S. president, American Special Forces, and the C.I.A., he assembles a team of ten men and one woman that will use some of the most advanced weapons, aircraft, and computer technology to execute this extraordinary mission. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Southeastern Michigan, USA
• Education—University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in Southeastern Michigan
Tom Grace was born, raised, and presently resides in Southeastern Michigan. He studied architecture at the University of Michigan, earning two degrees in the field. In just over twenty years of practice, Grace has worked on projects ranging from modest home renovations to major urban designs for Chicago and London. Much of his work has involved scientific and engineering research facilities, cutting-edge technologies that invariable find their way into his novels.
Grace credits his second career as a writer in equal parts to a voracious appetite for books, an overactive imagination, and a compulsive desire to set challenging long-term goals for himself. He wrote the first draft of his debut novel over a year’s worth of lunch hours. Spyder Web was published in 1999, and his writing earned favorable comparisons to Ian Fleming and Clive Cussler. Grace’s hero, Nolan Kilkenny, returned in Quantum (2000), Twisted Web (2003), Bird of Prey (2004), and The Secret Cardinal (2007).
In addition to intricately woven plots and break-neck pacing, Grace’s novels are infused with technology that is either state-of-the-art or just over the horizon. His scenarios often seem eerily prescient, so much so that Bird of Prey was cited in a National Security Briefing on the Chinese space program and space-based weaponry.
As both an author and architect, Grace lives by Mies van der Rohe’s famous aphorism: "God is in the details." Painstaking research underpins each of his novels, creating the factual foundations that support the stories.
Tom Grace resides in Michigan with his wife, five children and a yellow Labrador in a modernist home of his own design. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The Secret Cardinal is a deft blend of fact and fiction…a suspenseful tale rich with intrigue, unexpected turns and gritty characters.
National Catholic Register
Like The Da Vinci Code, this story features plenty of Vatican intrigue and several gory murders. But in The Secret Cardinal those representing the Catholic Church are the good guys.
US Catholic (Editor's Choice.)
Grace's latest featuring series hero ex-navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny spins a complicated fugue around papal succession. After the tragic loss of his beloved wife and unborn son, Kilkenny arrives at the Vatican and is soon called to the side of the dying pope Leo XIV. The pope discloses that more than 20 years earlier he made Yin Daoming—who has been a religious prisoner in China for longer than that—a secret cardinal. He asks Kilkenny to head up a team to go to China, free Yin and bring him back to the Vatican. Standing in Kilkenny's way is intelligence agent Liu Shing-Li of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, a very serious fellow indeed. Interspersed with rescue mission chapters are detailed descriptions of the Vatican's inner workings and the details of the process of pope selection, which thrills—only readers may find distracting. But Grace (Bird of Prey) builds a suspenseful head of steam as Kilkenny and friends overcome twists and obstacles in a dangerous race against Liu's forces.
Publishers Weekly
One is the most powerful man in the Catholic Church. The other is a man the Chinese government wants to destroy but fears turning into a martyr. Both are men of peace. Grace's fifth thriller (after Bird of Prey) featuring former Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny begins with Kilkenny on assignment in Rome helping an old family friend improve Vatican Library operations. Soon Kilkenny is swept up in Pope Leo's dying wish—to save the long-imprisoned Yin Daoming, the bishop of Shanghai, whose only crime is practicing his faith. As Kilkenny and his elite team plan to rescue Yin and smuggle him out of China, covert forces try to thwart the rescue effort and prevent any chance of the bishop becoming the next pope. Grace's spinning web of international intrigue makes for a gripping read, and the character of Yin provides a look at the power of one man of faith against incredible obstacles. Recommended for all popular fiction collections.
Susan O. Moritz - Library Journal
[The author] doesn't give us a lot of time to slow down and ponder the story's many imponderables; we're too busy running around after Kilkenny...on a mission to save the Catholic Church. Fans of high-flying adventure yarns will enjoy the romp, even if they find themselves rolling their eyes now and then. —David Pitt
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Secret Cardinal:
1. Be sure to read the Author's Note at the end of the story. Also visit the author's website to read some of the posted news clips regarding Chinese imprisonment of Catholic bishops. How does the fact that The Secret Cardinal is based on real-life events affect your reading?
2. Talk about Nolan Kilkenny? What kind of character is he? What skills does he bring to his mission? What about his moral code: does he have one? How does he differentiate which actions are acceptable, or unacceptable, in accomplishing his goal?
3. One reader notes that Kilkenny's mission demonstrates the adage that we are not alone in the world: Kilkenny's survival and success depend on teamwork and "help from unexpected quarters." What does the reader mean by that observation—and do you agree with it?
4. What about the technology devised by the military? Eye-popping? Which was most impressive? Think also about the consequences, in real life, of the U.S. military becoming involved in such a mission? Should it?
5. How has Yin Daoming survived his years of imprisonment? What special strengths does he exhibit? How has he...how does anyone...maintain faith in the face of isolation and torture?
6. What is your reaction to the torture scenes? Overly graphic...or powerful and necessary to the storyline?
7. Talk about the Vatican sections of the book, especially those regarding the papal selection: did you find them interesting and enlightening...or a dull and unnecessary digression?
8. How different do you find this book in its treatment of the Catholic church from, say Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons?
9. Does this book deliver in terms of a thriller: is it fast-paced with surprising twists and turns? Or is it plodding and predictable? Is the ending satisfying...or lacking in someway?
10. Should more attention be paid to the Chinese treatment of Catholics? Should more international efforts be directed toward achieving the bishops' release? Why has this issue not reached the scandalous proportions of any sex-charged political story that has captured public attention? Does the US, or any Western country, have the necessary leverage to affect change in China's behavior?
11. Is this book a religious book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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