City of Secrets: The Startling Truth Behind the Vatican Murders
By John Follain
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About this ebook
On the night of Monday, May 4, 1998, in Vatican territory, the bodies of the commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife, and a young lance corporal were found in the barracks of the picturesque force entrusted with protecting the pope. It was the worst bloodbath to take place in more than a century in the heart of the supreme authority of the world's one billion Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty-three-year-old Cédric Tornay, had shot the couple, then committed suicide in "a fit of madness" brought on by frustration with the unit's discipline -- a conclusion it reaffirmed after a nine-month internal inquiry.
But as John Follain's hard-hitting exposé shows, the official report was a travesty, a tissue of suppositions, contradictions, and omissions. Based on an exhaustive three-year investigation, City of Secrets reveals how the Vatican, the oldest and most secretive autocracy in the world, staged an elaborate plot to obstruct justice -- and hide the scandals it dared not confess.
John Follain
John Follain has covered Italy and the Vatican as a correspondent for the Sunday Times since 1998. He is the author of the critically acclaimed titles A Dishonoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia's Threat to Europe, Jackal: The Secret Wars of Carlos the Jackal, and Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom written with Rita Cristofari and Zoya. He lives with his wife in Rome.
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Reviews for City of Secrets
11 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5At the end of this book, a book that tries to reveal some transparency in a political/religious cloudy closed society that wants no one to peer behind the facade. Unfortunately it fails and succumbs to conjecture. THe only truth we really learn is that the Vatican needs to update their thinking and their treatment of those who dedicate their lives to its teachings.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book starts out really promising. Unfortunately it's only a promise unfulfilled. Even the title hints at some explosive secret. Unfortunately in a city filled with secrets it seems he found the only boring one. *Spoiler Alert* He found that in a city of men there might be *gasp* homosexuals. After that discovery it's all downhill. I had to force myself to read the last half of the book after that it was obvious nothing more shocking was to be had. It's not that it's poorly written, it isn't(in fact I'll be buying his book on Carlos the Jackal). I like the writing style it's just that it should have made a long news magazine article not a full length book.