Saturday, July 07, 2007

Day of Confession - Allan Folsom

Day of Confession by Allan Folsom
Mystery


Wow, what a thriller! After the assassination of a cardinal in the Vatican, Harry Addison gets a frantic voice mail from his estranged brother, Danny, a priest in Vatican City. Less than 24 hours later, Danny is dead and Harry is on a flight to Italy to bring his brother home. The police aren't willing to just let him come in and take his brother home without questioning him on some troubling evidence they have... that points to Danny being the murderer of the cardinal.
I've read quite a few mysteries this year, yet I find that for me, a mystery is much more page turning when someone is wrongly accused. Trying to find out how the character is going to prove that they are innocent makes for a page turning novel!
I felt quite sympathetic towards Harry and Danny and enjoyed them both as characters. Elena, the nurse that took care of them, however, was a bit stiff. And when Folsom forced a relationship on Elena and Harry, I was surprised. I felt absolutely no chemistry between the two of them. It's almost as if Folsom thought that Harry seeing Elena naked would suddenly make him fall in love with her.
I was a little questionable towards Palestrina. How could someone so obviously evil and self-serving get to be so high in the Vatican City? Surely someone would have said something about him sooner, regardless of his scare tactics. But of course, without him none of the story would have been possible.
The ending of the book was cinematic and I had troubles putting down the book to get off the train and go to work!


Rating:

(4.5/5)

1 comment:

Gerry said...

it's often tough to get the human element to work right in a thriller. it takes a lot of effort just to get the mechanics of the plot working right, and the characters tend to want to stay focused on the task at hand rather than finding romance.

gerry-doyle.blogspot.com