THE OPTION OF GOD

Christendom is in a crisis: a violent jihadist attack, the first one in Italy, has caused a slaughter right in front of St. Peter, and right after an equally explosive news starts to spread within the Apostolic Palace: the Pope is dying.

Immediately in the Curia the fight for succession ignites.   The traditionalists’ candidate is Angelo Vignale, an ascetic old cardinal who is also supervisor at the IOR, the Vatican’s most important bank, while the candidate of the modernist party is Warren Hamilton, a South African former rugby player who has earned himself a reputation for settling many claims of child abuse before they reached the courts, thus saving the Church a lot of money.

The two immediately start searching for ways to block the rival’s way to the papal throne. Hamilton’s strategy is to sieve the accounts at IOR, in the hope to find some irregularity unnoticed by the rival. In this exercise Hamilton is helped by Alessio Macchia, a young priest full of faith, and his brother Giovanni, who instead has completely lost his faith. For his part, Vignale unleashes his assistant to investigate on Hamilton’s past, hoping that he will find some skeletons in his closet.

While the police investigate on the terrorist attack, the leads multiply and the intrigue of power, money, terrorism and compromises within the Vatican gets thicker and thicker. But just when all investigations appear to have run aground, unexpectedly a thread emerges that unites them, and brings to light an appalling truth.

“One of the best novels of this year. It reminds the Dostoevskij of The Brother Karamazov and Poor Folk, or the Victor Hugo of Les Miserables. And also Dan Brown, but with an extra gear.” – Gian Paolo Serino, Il Giornale

“A narrative mechanism from which it becomes rapidly and inexorably difficult to get out” – Paolo Melissi, Satisfiction 

“A plot so sumptuously concocted, so perfect in the minimum details, organized in such a howling crescendo that, the final night, I had to read 150 pages in a row. I simply wasn’t able to put it down.” – Raul Montanari

“A work of remarkable literary depth” – Francesco Morra, Thrillernord

“A page turner of perfect mechanisms” – Angelo Cennamo, Telegraph Avenue

“L’Opzione di Dio is destined to become a major commercial movie… it probably ought to be required reading at the most senior levels of ecclesiastical authority” – John L. Allen Jr, CruxNow