The Concordat

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Pub Date 11 Jun 2018 | Archive Date 22 Jun 2023

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Description

Since his rise to power, Russian President Alexander Volkov has increasingly engaged in hostile activities as he attempts to rebuild the Russian Empire. In support of his tactics, the Russian FSB have forged a Concordat dated to 1939 in which the Vatican supposedly agreed to cease all opposition to the Nazi government in return for being appointed the official state religion of the Third Reich.  

Planting the counterfeit in a Berlin apartment, the FSB engineer a plan to blackmail the Vatican via the son of a murdered former East German Stasi colonel. The Vatican reluctantly agrees to acquire the counterfeit to prevent it falling into the hands of the Church’s enemies, sending the head of the Vatican Police, Lorenzo Rossi, to Germany to negotiate with the blackmailer. But Rossi’s flight is delayed and by the time he arrives the blackmailer is dead and the Concordat has vanished. 

Rossi follows a deadly trail to Paris and onto Moscow, where he meets Cathy Doherty, a CIA Agent with a passion for all things Russian. Together they set out to establish the origins of the Concordat, and its intended purpose. Armed with information provided by a CIA informant, the forger is identified. Will Rossi be able to recover the Concordat and flee Russia with his life?

Since his rise to power, Russian President Alexander Volkov has increasingly engaged in hostile activities as he attempts to rebuild the Russian Empire. In support of his tactics, the Russian FSB...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781789011142
PRICE US$4.99 (USD)
PAGES 200

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Featured Reviews

I have a love of history and my newfound enjoyment of thriller/ suspense books led me to believe that unless Sean’s writing style sucked I’d probably enjoy this book. So it was just a matter of how much would I enjoy it?

Getting stuck into it I read the first few chapters and was immediately engrossed. My dad is Catholic but non-practising and so I’ve never really had much of an understanding of religion and how it played into politics so I was starting to get a different understanding of how the Vatican worked. Once I got to about 5 or 6 chapters in (there’s 72 chapters in all and they aren’t very long) where every chapter followed someone new I was starting to think this was going to be even more complex than Game of Thrones and I’d need to get a notebook to keep track of all the characters!

Luckily it calms down a little as more and more of said characters are killed off making the overall plot of the book thicker and deeper. And what better way to hook someone like me than to kill of character’s when they have JUST started to feel important? Well of course, I just HAD to keep reading! I started to resent having to go to work coz I just wanted to know what happened next! Luckily with the chapters being so short I was able to finish up at the end of a chapter most of the time, which gave me some sort of closure during the day while I was at work.

There’s so many plots happening concurrently throughout this book I always felt like I was on the back foot trying to figure out what was going on. Which I loved! I enjoy the typical romance novels quite a bit, but I also love to be challenged and I get bored if I’m constantly reading the same style of book. So this was an amazing break from the romance novels as this didn’t feel like it was a romance novel at all. Yes there were elements here and there. But they felt really well placed and as if they added to the overall story rather than being the focal piece.

My one regret about this book is how it ended. Those last 3 chapters really burst my bubble a little bit. I have been informed that there will be a second book so I’m hoping that will redeem that ending for me. It just felt like the ending didn’t really fit with the rest of the books feel. But I will have to wait until I read the second book to know for sure!

But other than the ending I honestly didn’t have any complaints! This is one I definitely plan to give to my dad for Christmas (yes I will actually pay for a physical copy for my dad!) because this style of book is well and truly up his alley and I can see him smashing it out in a couple of days.

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This is a thriller full of gritty realism. The plot opens explosively and from beginning to end is fast and furious. At times I couldn't help thinking the author must have been looking into a crystal ball: A despotic Russian president bringing the world ever-closer to Armageddon!
The fear of Armageddon is prevalent in all of Sean Heary's thrillers but he offsets the tension with splendidly witty banter between Inspector General Lorenzo Rossi of the Vatican Corpa delta Gendarmeria and Agent Cathy Doherty of the FBI. Their on/off/on again relationship makes compelling reading.
The plot is a new slant on the age old war between politics and the Church. In this case President Volkov's plan to rid Russia of Catholics and return the motherland to the orthodox faith.
A thought-provoking, deeply disturbing, look at a ruler motivated by greed and seduced by power.

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