Redemption Comes Through The Jews… Excerpts

This was interesting when I found it on the Facebook page of Ann Margaret Lewis (of Murder in the Vatican), so I figured I would post a few excerpts.

I especially found it interesting that the numbers presented here are similar to the ones I posted a while ago.

You can find the full text here:

But the edited version you can find below.

Index: Atheists, Lent, and Evil Religions

Throughout Easter and a Lent, I did a lot of what my friend Jason called "High Intellectual" articles.


I'm never making that mistake ever again.

However, since it did have some interesting fan support.... if "fans" could be people screaming for your blood ... I figured I'd put it into a nice, compact little section on the blog. Think of it as a season in review that, with luck, I'll never inflict on anyone ever again.

The Snarky Theology series. My way of translating dogmatic theology into something that human beings can understand.

Snarky Theology 1: Catholic Cannibals. Looking at the theology of Swallow the leader. Eating your deity.
Snarky Theology 2: FAQs about Lent. Some fun facts about Lent that turned into a minor war.

The Flame war is postponed:While I was busy having a flame war with an idiot on the blog, someone did something stupid online. I fought back in the name of all sane people everywhere.

Snarky theology 3: Evolution, Creationists, and other Irritants. Evolution, what is it good for? My answer: who cares?

Snarky Theology 4: "Things that go boink in the night." Catholicism on Sex and Gays Pretty much what it says.

GOD H8TS JAPAN; Twitting with Phelps & Co.  Hint, it was published on 4-1-11

Snarky Theology 5: The Passion, Jews, and Good Friday. 

Snarky Theolgy 6: Easter: HE IS RISEN





The Guest Blog Index -- "Catholic fiction"-- I had two weeks off from Snarky theology for two virtual book tours. One was a bit of Sherlock Holmes with Murder in the Vatican, and some Catholic science fiction from Karina Fabian's Infinite Space, Infinite God II

Murder in the Vatican Author Margaret Ann Lewis.

Guest blog (on writing historical figures in fiction) and Interview (on writing a book on Sherlock Holmes and Pope Leo XIII), and a Review of Murder in the Vatican, which can be found at Amazon.com

I did the same for Karina Fabian.

The Guest blog: where she talks about writing religion and science fiction

The interview, where I unleash my inner nerdom ...

And a review.

I think that was the most fun I had had that Lent. They were both a joy and a pleasure to have.

Evil Religions

And, at the end of may, when the Easter season was almost over, I did a series I call, simply "Evil Religion." The title, for the record, was Ironic. It wound up covering a lot of atheist theology. Not sure why. Maybe because the Dawkins-Hitchens crowd tend to whine alot.

I had a Preface to explain the premise.

One called simply "Allahu Akbar" Guess what that's about.

Jesus Freaks scare me

Baby-raping Catholic priests

The Ten commandments of Atheism, if I wrote them

Evil Religion: Atheism

Science and Religion: Stupid Catholics.

Anti-theist complaints: Literal interpretations. I asked my friend Matt what he thought was wrong with religion. I answered him.  This was pretty much a series all it's own from here on in.

Mormons and Gays.

Indoctrination of Children. Because religious education is brain washing, don't you know?

Doctrine Crapshoot. Because everything is just pick and choose, right?

Religious Superiority complexes: Because religion is the source of egomania, after all.

Random Beliefs. Because it's all so random, you know?

Conform, or else.... because no one ever goes against a secular norm.

Evil Atheist / Religion, Conclusion.  This is where I tie it all together.

Can you understand why this blog is now all nerd-dom all the time?  This was a draining, wrenching experience. One that I never want to relive. 

Anti-theist complaints: Indoctrination of children

[Disclaimer: When Lent started, I figured I would do a whole bunch of "Snarky Theology" blog posts, followed by "Evil Religion" blogs. And, while I was at it, I asked Matt, friend of this blog, artist, atheist, and a few other things, to generate a list of what he found to be problematic with religion. He gave me a few.



I promised him I would use it. And I keep my promises



This is the last week I'm doing what my friend Jason calls "high-intellectual" blog posts. They are time consuming, draining, a lot of work, and I'm not sure they are at all entertaining. They've garnered some response, much of it hate mail.



My replies are long-winded, so this may take a few posts.



If you find yourself here by accident, or have no interest in the topic, I invite you to look around. Our most popular blogs are in the sidebar, as are the short stories, what this book is about, and we have entries on why anyone can enjoy this book, any politics involved, spytech, and even a section for fans of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction. If we don't have something you like ... wait five minutes. :)



Anyway, onto the complaint ....]

Indoctrination of children

I'm half with atheists on this one. Evangelicals run Jesus camps, which are really freaking creepy. I think “Children of the Corn.”



However, I know someone who went to a Jesus camp, skipped out on all of the camp stuff, and is a believer despite those particular schmucks.



And for Catholics … oh good God. This isn't indoctrination, this is drivel … not because of the ceremonies, etc, but my friend Matt once pointed out, I haven't found any Catholic school that explains what the hell the ceremonies are for! I only know reasons for them because I have a father with a PhD in Catholic Philosophy, I've a graduate degree in history, and I had to do most of my own fricking research. Catholics don't indoctrinate their children in the faith, they educate their children … badly.



Besides, if Catholics  indoctrinated kids, we'd have a better retention rate....



What? You think I ran all of these apologetics blogs to explain stuff to non-Catholics? Please, the Catholic educational system, like all private schools, are leaps and bounds over public schools ....



Except in teaching Catholicism!!!!!



Yeah, anyway....



Anyway, at the end of the day, I would like to see children raise kids without religion. And I mean any religion, even if it's the religion of santa, or "won't get better if you pick at it", or even "kisses make it better" and "your face will freeze that way." (Idea stolen from R. Hendershot, telephone conversation)



I think I can summarize a world without religion like this. It is an exchange from Terry Prachett's novel Hogfather -- where the Hogfather is the equivalent of Santa Clause. In a world run by the materialists of the day, I'd like to see them answer it.

Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?

Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.

Susan: So we can believe the big ones?

Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.

Susan: They're not the same at all.

Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.

Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?

Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

Science and Religion … Stupid Catholics.

Every time I hear that all of religion is against science, I just sigh.

They want to cite Galileo. You can read about him in my evolution article. Short version: Considering that he found himself on trial by insulting the Pope, he was lucky, and merely put under house arrest. The charges basically amounted to being a jerk without a license … I should note that Richard Dawkins has such a license. He's British.

Well, I'm Catholic. I think I'm part of the only religion that has it's own observatory. Two of them. One of them is parked outside the Pope's summer home of Castel Gandalfo. We also have a very odd blessing … in 1924, the Church has a blessing for a seismograph.

My church is weird.

The major cry about religion being against science amounts to a cry of “Oh, what about embryonic stem cells. Waaaahhhh!!!!!” The short version on embryonic stem cells is that they have been portrayed as a potential miracle cure for practically everything from cancer to paraplegia, and the evil religious people are against it, because all religious people are against science, and progress, etc.

The stated position of most religions I've kept up on has been “Can we have a scientific advancement that doesn't involve kidding infants in utero? Thanks.”

However.... Considering that, in 2007, Kyoto University researcher Shinya Yamanaka has already been able to transform skin cells into any other type of cell, I don't think stems cells are really relevant, do you? (Nature, June 6, 2007).

But, what do I know? I'm only the stupid Catholic. Richard Dawkins says that all religious people are stupid, and Dawkins is an educated man.

Let's go through a brief history of scientific research. However, I have a little list … actually, it's a long, long list, and a good chunk of them are here.


I think I'll cover the big names to start with.
[Below the break]

Ten Commandments of Atheism

If you look at the group of professional atheists, who I will generally refer to as the Dawkins-Hitchens crowd, they like to say that they're better than everyone else, because they're moral for no good reason, other than the fact that “it's what's right.” They aren't beholden to any sky daddy, they don't need no stinking afterlife, they're just plain good.

At the other extreme, atheists have been called ethical parasites. They can't come up with their own ethical code, so they leach off of the customs established by religious codification of morality and ethics. They can't come up with a standard of right and wrong, so, therefore, they mindlessly ape those around them and call themselves perfect.

… I'm not with either of them.


On the one hand, I have noticed that the most horrific things of the 20th century happened at the behest of atheist thought. No matter what he said in public, according to his nearest and dearest, Hitler worshiped nothing, and Stalin may have merely worshiped himself … at the end of the day, Communism killed a hundred million people. Some atheists, like Sam Harris, have tried to ignore communism, saying that it's really just another religion. Um, sure Sam, whatever you say...

Mr. Harris also says that he's a Bhuddist, which isn't a religion, but “a philosophy” … Dear sir, I would like to introduce you to a few million people in India who would like to disagree with you on that.

You have Richard Dawkins, the Joseph Goebbels of atheism … which isn't derogatory. His position at Oxford was the “Professor for Public Understanding of Science.” Maybe you prefer Minister of the Propagation of the Faith (The name for what Catholics used to call the Inquisition)? He thinks that you can have morality based off of scientific principles. He also thinks that you can use science to replace all of the poetry, art, music, and everything else religion has inspired.

While Fractals versus the Pieta doesn't seem like a fair fight, let's stick with morality for a moment.

I'm going to look at England for a moment. Not because Hitchens and Dawkins hail from there, but because they have a really fricking thorough census process. When they put down "religion," they have options from Catholic to Jedi Knight.

When you look at their prison statistics, 31.6% of the inmates have "no religion." 15.1% of Britons checked  none, Jedi Knight, agnostic, atheist, or heathen in the 2001 nation survey. However, Christians make up 71.8% of the total population, yet are only 39.1% of the prison population....

Hmm.... I'm a historian, not a math major. So someone else can do that math....

However, does this mean that atheists can't be good? Please, give me a break. I think that atheists can generate their own ethics the same way Aristotle did. And, preferably, they would come up with it in a better fashion, since his science sucked. Well, his physics sucked, his observations on people work fairly well.

The term atheists want is “natural law.” The Catholic Church also has this law in effect, uses it all the time. You can also use natural law to generate about half of the ten commandments … I wouldn't say they boil down to George Carlin's two commandments, but reasonably close. The important part is that, if you want to jettison faith, there's Aristotle, go adopt him. You have a nice, solid philosophy already there. Someone, pick it up!

But, no, they don't. Instead of saying “Let's stick modern science into Aristotle,” the Dawkins-Harris crowd says “Let's chuck out the last few thousand years and start all over.”

Right, because science totally works that way.

Some may notice that I don't count prominent Atheists like Daniel Dennett or Christopher Hitchens. Dennett is Christian-friendly, and comes with none of the arrogance of Harris or Dawkins.

Hitchens … I like Hitchens. He's the kind of snotty British character that is eternal. From what I can tell, he doesn't like anybody. Not even Mother Theresa … when the Church considered putting her on the road to being a Saint, the Devil's Advocate flew Hitchens in are one of the witnesses for the prosecution (long story; he had reasons. I don't agree with them, but I understood them). Hitchens' idea of an atheist morality is that he would like to screw everything that moved, without STDs … I can't fault a man that honest.

I would like someone like my friend Matt to try updating Aristotle, without Christianity. My old friend Colleen would be nice too. It's not hard, nor is it rocket science.

“We observe that in nature that those who screw around a lot tend to become infected with all manner of nasty viruses. This may be nature's way of telling us that it is a good idea to keep it zipped. Or, otherwise, to stay with one person for extended periods of time.” (This is a personal belief. I've met enough people that became intolerably neurotic after they became sexually active, I would abstain from sex until marriage, even if I were an atheist. So would Matt. Committed relationships, for the win).

But, I don't think anyone is going to try adopting natural law anytime soon. Under that rubric, what is “natural” is pretty much anything that sustains or supports life. A plastic heart valve to replace an artery is “natural,” in that it supports a natural function; the heart pumping blood.

If life is considered natural, death is unnatural, including everything that stops life from happening. If something stops a natural function, it is unnatural … This should be where the pro-abortion lobby comes gunning for me. But I've covered that already in my politics blog, so leave me alone.

A modern, atheist natural law would have to address the whole “when does life start” question. I could mention that some studies link abortion to an increase in depression and cancer rates, and say that it implies that abortion is a bad idea, given that the human body doesn't seem to appreciate it. But what do I know? (And, because I even considered mentioning abortion, I expect most people to ignore everything else I say and latch into this one small section with a death grip. Just watch.)

To any atheist who starts a discussion on where life begins, just be careful. Peter Singer and James D. Watson (of Watson and DNA) have both discussed holding off on giving birth certificates to newborns. One wants to wait ten days to run tests for genetic defects, and the other wants to wait a few days, if the parents want to have a retroactive abortion; both for eugenics reasons. Eugenics make me nervous.

If I were an Atheist, how would I run the universe?

While George Carlin's routine is funny, I think I wouldn't keep it as “the two commandments.”
[Read below the break.]

Twitter Trolls: Writing in the Electronic Age

Should you want to become a writer, you're going to have to live with the Internet. You're already on the net, since you're reading this, but if you're just a casual user, get ready for culture shock. There are nut jobs all over the Internet. Normal, reasonable people, added to the Internet, seem to become quite psychotic. And I don't mean a little nuts -- because that can be any Friday afternoon after a busy week and you're stuck in rush hour -- I mean frothing at the mouth rabid, violently deranged.

If you want to go into writing, the Internet will be your friend. And your worst enemy. Probably at the same time. You will need it to sell your book. Interviews, book tours, podcasts, guest blogs, book reviews, all of it, are done online. It will be a valuable tool. Statistics seem to indicate that casual viewers of your material will not comment, one way or another. I have posted some stories from the blog for A Pius Man on another website, and have been rewarded with some glowing reviews of my work. One story got me three reviews in a matter of hours -- but only after nearly two thousand people had already read the story.

On this blog, some of the more viewed blog posts have come with people who have seriously, seriously hated me and everything I said. See the Lent post, if you don't believe me.

But, people are complicated: You could, for example, look at Matt's website. Matthew Funtime, artist for all of the good artwork on this blog, is an atheist. And I don't mean the casual "I don't believe in God, thanks, bye" sort of atheist. He's a bit of a die hard. And, if you look at his posts on religion, you might think he falls into the above rubric. He really doesn't. Unlike some people, who are reasonable until you lodge a disagreement, Matt seems to be in full Keith-Olberman-without-his-medication-mode to start with. However, if you lodge a simple, civil disagreement, he will politely disagree with you, and have a conversation.

Matt is a sane, reasonable person if you are a sane, reasonable person.

There are some that aren't so sane....



Long-time readers will remember that I dislike politics because the moment I have a label put on me, I have other people telling me what I think. I can't finish a sentence, or explain my long, thought-out, nuanced position, political philosophy.

Apparently, that's not even limited to politics anymore. Apparently, it's called the entire Internet

For example, there is a twitter exchange I had with one entity who made a casual mention about the Westboro Baptist Church -- that if they really hated gays, they should be outside the Vatican....

Now, after last week, you know my position on that particular cliche: it's overdone, overblown, and somewhat stupid. I figured I could take a swipe at him, or casually correct what he was saying. I could also call him out on the insult to gay people -- he was using the term "fag," and not referring to a cigarette or a piece of wood -- but he probably wouldn't get it.

So, as a lead in, I gave him a little counter attack, which was:

APiusManNovel JohnK
@GASmithIV Actually, if they wanted pedophiles, that's what the teacher's unions are for.

Yes, it's provocative. I wanted a reaction. When he asked for clarification, ("Are you saying that public school teachers are pedophiles?") I gave him

@GASmithIV Public school teachers had over 300K vics in the 90s, vs 10K for priests (1950-2002). So, yes.

@GASmithIV Teachers: http://tinyurl.com/y3423mc Priests: http://tinyurl.com/32oq9q

That was the total extent of it. Notice, if you would, that the numbers given only refer to numbers of victims. Nothing else. Yes, there are bad teachers, but there are still bad priests. The most I could make of "an argument" is that the priesthood isn't the only institution with a corruption problem.  The numbers in the report on teachers (cited last week) was that there were over 300,000 complaints registered against public school teachers over the course of more than a decade, and only 1% were investigated, or given any credence.  And that one in ten children go through the public school system and get abused at some point. From 1950-2002, there were only over ten thousand people who made accusations, and only 3% of those accused (the accused were about 4% of the overall priests during that time period) were convicted of anything. For a correction rate, 3% of 4% isn't bad. If you go by The New York Times, that boils down to only 100 bad apples over half a century.

Granted, 100 bad apples that should suffer horrors that would make GITMO detainees want to be water boarded, but still, for a corruption record, it's not that bad.

Now, I figured that, when this fellow read through the footnotes, the most he would do was correct me that the report cited above doesn't paint all teachers with a brush of child abuse -- a perfectly valid correction, one I would have easily accepted. We would smile, nod, and depart with an agreement. The sole premise: the Catholic priesthood might not be the most evil entity on the planet.

Then, in a reply peppered with foul language, this particular person on twitter said that was only because the Catholic Church hid everything. Muahahahaha .... okay, there was no evil laughter, but it would have been preferable to what he did say.

So, I blinked a few times. Wait a second. I cited a perfectly valid John Jay University study that examined the situation with science, psychology, statistical breakdowns and a full, nuanced report. John Jay U, an institution that deals heavily in criminal justice and related professions. It is a secular, impartial authority. You have to get up pretty early to pull the wool over their eyes. Since most Bishops don't get up until 8am, that discounted most Catholic clergy.

Hoping to prompt this fellow into reading the darn report, I decided to go the sarcastic approach, and underline the part I was certain he missed.

@GASmithIV Yes, because John Jay is in the pocket of the Catholic Church. #brilliant

Okay. Certainly, that would get him to read everything I had just sent him, right?

Not really. From the violence of his response, you would think that I had insulted every beloved relative he had. It took up three twitter replies, and the language was certainly R-rated.

The only salient point was that his reply was a little deranged. He wouldn't debate me on twitter, etc, etc, and there was a whole bunch of violence thrown in.

I went for the assumption of Godwin's law. He went postal, he lost. I told him so.

He proceeded to go even more postal. He suggested that I be hung from a lamp post, with every priest ever born, all of my twitter followers, and my little dog too.

I only had two answers for him.

@GASmithIV So, you approve of public school teachers as pedophiles? Good to know it's not the action you hate, just the priests.


@GASmithIV U do realize the only implication was that there r other groups with corruption issues? U jumped straight 2 lynching. Good job.
19 May via web

Yes, it was a little childish stab at the end, but after the homophobic, Catholic-phobic, and generally delusional replies, I figured I was owed the jab.

Now, for those of you who are wondering: "Why did John only post his own replies?"  Good question. The answer is that I have no idea.  As I write this (Sunday, May 22, 2011 -- if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done), all of the various and sundry comments made by GASmithIV have evaporated into the digital realm, yet all of my replies are still on my twitter feed. I have no idea why this is, or how, just that it is.

Unfortunately, there is a part of this story missing because it's my fault. Someone tried to get cute with me, and posted on my blog about the numbers I posted on Twitter. The moron read the numbers of victims as the numbers of the accused. He also told me not to debate him, because he was right, and I was stupid. So there.

Since he obviously didn't read anything I had posted, and he posted the comment in my Neil Gaiman post, I deleted it -- I mean, heck, he could have posted it in the appropriate slot in the cliche post. But he couldn't be bothered looking for that one. In retrospect, I should have saved the comment, but it didn't occur to me to write this post until after I deleted it

It was interesting. Without making any argument at all, I was subjected to a whole slew of death threats, ranting, raving, and general carrying on cranky.

So, welcome to the Internet. Lessons you should learn:

1. Don't feed the trolls.

2. No matter what your argument, people will disagree with you violently. Possibly because they have nothing better to do.

3. If you don't have an argument, people will fill in the blanks just so they can disagree with you violently. In all likelihood, because they want to be angry.

4. Don't go looking for attention from morons unless you know they will be morons in advance and you're ready for them. For example: when I had a twitter conversation with the Phelps spawn, I knew they would be morons in advance, and I spent most of my time laughing at them. I concluded they had no sense of humor. At all.

5. When they tell you not to debate you, laugh at them. A lot. Perhaps maniacally.

Illegitimi non carborundum

Review: Murder in the Vatican, the Church Mysteries of Sherlock Homes.

After a guest blog from author Ann Margaret Lewis, and the interview with her, it's now time for my review of her book. 



I wanted to hold off on this for the end, to make certain that there would be no influence on her one way or another.  The same ground rules will apply next week for Infinite Space, Infinite God II editor Karina Fabian, who will also submit a guest blog, and be subjected to an interview.

Now, on with the review....

When I was thirteen, I started reading through the collected stories of Sherlock Holmes. I made it about halfway through. I had been stopped dead by "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott"—the one and only time Holmes was the narrator.  I wasn't the only one who had a problem with that story. Another author of the day, G.K. Chesterton, said that the Gloria Scott showed why Watson was relevant: because Holmes was an awful storyteller.

Since then, I have been critical of anything about Sherlock Holmes written after the death of Arthur Conan Doyle. Some stories went wildly off track. Others were riddled with so many anachronisms it was painful. Of the vast quantity of Holmes-related material published, my family of readers owns only a fraction.



When Robert Downey Jr. starred in Sherlock Holmes, I crossed my fingers and hoped it didn't suck … instead, I got a checklist of what they did right.

When Doctor Who scribe and show runner Steven Moffat created a show called Sherlock, I also crossed my fingers. It was surprisingly awesome.



Then I heard about Murder in the Vatican. The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes on the newsletter for the Catholic Writers Organization. It had an interesting premise: author Ann Margaret Lewis takes Watson's offhand references of Holmes working on cases for the Pope, or involving religious figures, and turns them into entire stories.



I experienced the same feeling of dread. How off would the narration be? Would someone try converting Holmes? How lost would a detective from Victorian, Anglican England be in Catholic Rome? How many different ways were there to screw this up?



I stopped worrying when I read the first sentence.  And, oh my God, this book is awesome!  I loved this book....



Lewis caught the voice of Dr. John Watson as though she had taken it, trapped in a bottle, and used it to refill her pen into as she wrote. I liked the voice. I liked Watson, the doctor, trying to diagnose an ailing Leo XIII (85 at the time of the events of the first story). I like the brief sketch of the political situation between the Vatican and Italy. I even enjoy Watson's discomfort at the Pope slipping into “The Royal We” when he speaks of himself as The Pope.  Even the artwork was as though it had been lifted from issues of The Strand magazine.



Someone had fun here, and it shows.



Thankfully, there is no overt attempt to convert Holmes, evangelize or proselytize him. There is only enough theology in the entire novel that explains to the casual reader exactly what the heck the Pope is doing. The closest the book comes to exposing Holmes to theology is a page-long sequence that ends with Leo saying, “Perhaps you should spend some of your inactive time pondering that conundrum [of Jesus] instead of indulging in whatever narcotic it is with which you choose to entertain yourself.”  That is the best zinger I've ever seen a character use on Holmes regarding his drug use.  Even the most secular person I know can appreciate a page of theology for one of the better one-liners I've ever seen.



Also, the little things were entertaining for a nerd like me. For example, the casual mention of John Cardinal Newman, referred to as “a recent convert.” The political situation at the time is given just enough of a sketch to explain what's going on, but nothing obtrusive; history nerds like me can be satisfied, but you don't have to have a degree in it to comprehend what's going on.



There are truly parts where the novel seems to merge all the best qualities of Sherlock Holmes with those of G.K. Chesterton's Fr. Brown short stories ...



At this point, I must make a small confession. I write these reviews as I read the book. There is plenty of backtracking, to fill the blanks, and rewrite it as the book goes. I wrote the above line when I finished the first tale. In fact, the interview questions I sent to Ann Margaret Lewis were written before I even received a review copy of the book.  I then read “The Vatican Cameos,” and discover a Deacon, named Brown …



I swear I didn't see that coming.



The first story in this collection is "The Death of Cardinal Tosca."

In this memorable year '95 a curious and incongruous succession of cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca -- an inquiry which was carried out by him at the express desire of His Holiness the Pope  . . . .



—Dr. John H. Watson, “The Adventure of Black Peter”

Imagine Sherlock Holmes on vacation … if you see that vacation turning out like an episode of Murder, She Wrote, with a body hitting the floor at some point, you pretty much have the setup. It has a poison pen letter, with real poison, some Masons, references to two different cases in the space of two paragraphs, and a Papal commando raid with a real pontiff. This story is so delightfully odd and over-the-top, but still preserves as much reality as any other Holmes tale. I enjoyed every moment of it. And I can't argue with any story where the pope gets most of the amusing one-liners.



Heck, even the murderer gets in a good line.  When confronted, our first killer sneers.  “Let me guess. You're going to explain, to the amazement of your friends, how I did the deed?”  Holmes replies, “I've already told them that. It would be old news. They already know you blundered badly.”



I think the story concludes on a nice, solid note.  As Holmes tells Watson, “[Leo XIII] is genuinely pious. He is also imperious, but in a most endearing way.”



Watson merely replies, “Yes, well. I'm used to that.”

 "I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases."

—Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles

The second tale, "The Vatican Cameos," is a bit of a flashback episode to when Holmes first met the Pope. Leo XIII has sent a collection of cameos to Queen Victoria. The cameos are secured tightly in the box they're delivered in, but upon their arrival in London, the box is empty. The Queen has a simple solution: send Sherlock Holmes. Watson is busy with a medical emergency, so he wasn't around.



When Watson asks Sherlock about the incident, Holmes says, quite clearly “Watson, I am incapable of spinning a tale in the way you do. The narrative would read like a scientific treatise.”



Madam Lewis certainly read "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott."



So, there is only one person left who can narrate this tale … the Pope himself. This was the story that truly showed that the author did her research, assembling little details of Leo XIII's interests and hobbies and putting them together into a rich, vibrant character. He is shown here as witty, humorous, and bright.



The byplay between Leo XIII and Holmes in this story was marvelously entertaining. The Pope is shown to be about as smart as Watson … maybe a little smarter. When Holmes first meets the Pontiff, and rattles off conclusions in his usual rapid-fire manner, the Pope takes a minute, and deduces how Holmes came to most of them. Not all, but most. This is a wonderful inversion of what is so typical of early Sherlock Holmes films—in the Basil Rathbone movies, whenever Holmes walked onto the screen, the IQ of everyone in the room dropped about ten points. Making Leo this smart only serves to make Holmes as impressive as he should be—yes, everyone else may be smart, but Holmes is smarter.



Also, having Leo XIII using Thomas Aquinas to talk with Holmes of reason and science … it works for me.



And the scene with Holmes, the Pope, and the gunman was fun, too.

"You know that I am preoccupied with this case of the two Coptic Patriarchs, which should come to a head to-day."



Sherlock Holmes, “The Retired Colourman”

"The Second Coptic Patriarch": The third and final tale is from yet another throwaway line of Arthur Conan Doyle's.



In this case, a former criminal comes to Holmes to solicit his services; the priest who converted him away from his life of crime is in jail for murder. A bookstore owner has been murdered with a book (“The Rule of Oliver Cromwell--weighty subject, no doubt,” Holmes quips), and the priest will only say that the victim was dead when he arrived.  It's almost Sherlock Holmes meets Alfred Hitchcock ... I didn't know someone could do I Confess like this. It's a fun little read, and possibly the most traditional of the Holmes stories -- it's a good tale.  From the perspective of the overall book, it's a perfect cap to the character arc.



Now, after reading Murder in the Vatican, I think I'm going to go back and finish the Sherlock Holmes series -- and keep Murder in the Vatican handy, so I can read them all in chronological order.



Ann Lewis said that the book was "meant to be fun and lift your heart for a short time. I had a blast writing it, and I hope you have a blast reading it."



Mission accomplished.



At the time I read this book, I had been reading another recent work of Sherlock Holmes-related fiction called The Sherlockian.  It was written by a Graham Moore, and it was about a Sherlock Holmes nerd who was sucked into a murder mystery.



Between the two of them, read Murder in the Vatican.



I want to thank Madam Lewis for her time and energy with the guest blog and the interview, and I want to thank her for this marvelous book.  It has been a pleasure to have her on board.

And, now, a surprise .... a sneak peek of the novel.



Enjoy.

An Excerpt

From “The Case of Cardinal Tosca”

“Good Lord.” Harden’s face grew pale. “Rosalinda—!”



Pope Leo blanched as well. Tapping his right fist in his opposite hand, he turned to look out the window behind him. The rain clouds had now blotted the sun, making it seem as dusk in the early afternoon sky.



The pope turned back to us, his dark eyes flashing with decision. “Giocomo!” He commanded suddenly. “Come here.”



Father Dionisio came quickly to his master’s side.



“Remove your cassock.”



“Holiness?”



“Subito!” As Leo spoke, he lifted the pectoral cross over his head and set it on the table. He then unwrapped the sash from around his waist and tossed it on his chair. “Presto! Presto! We have no time to waste.”



Hurriedly, the young man unbuttoned his cassock even as Leo unbuttoned his own. Holmes came around the table and knelt to help Leo with the lower buttons.



“What on earth —?” I asked.



“You’ll see,” said Holmes.



Dionisio removed his cassock and stood in simple black shirt, clerical collar and black trousers. Holmes helped Leo slip out of his white cassock and into the black gown provided by Dionisio. The black was almost the right size, though fuller through the midsection due to Dionisio’s thicker frame.



“You’re not serious, Holiness,” said Harden. “You’re not actually leaving the Vatican. Someone may recognise you—”



“‘If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship,’” Leo replied, quoting what I later learned was Aquinas. “‘He would keep it in port forever.’” He buttoned the top of the cassock while Dionisio crouched to fasten the bottom. “We must go. An innocent child is in danger for my sake.”



“Signore Harden is right, Holiness,” said Dionisio from floor. “This is madness.”



“Basta.” Leo pulled the young man from the ground by the elbow. He gestured emphatically with an open hand to the top of his head. “Portami un cappello. Presto!” Dionisio dashed into the next room. “And black stockings and shoes—ah, never mind I’ll find something.” The pontiff marched with remarkable energy into a side room that I guessed to be his sleeping area and returned promptly with black calf-length boots. His gentleman servant now trailed him protesting in rapid Italian as His Holiness moved. While the pontiff sat on a small bench to kick off his red slippers and pull on the boots, the agitated servant knelt beside him rambling so quickly that neither Harden nor I could decipher any meaning from him.



Apparently the meaning didn’t register to Leo either. “Basta, basta, BASTA!” He barked, stomping his boot-covered foot. He pointed a thumb to his chest. “Ego sum Petros!” He made sweeping gesture to drive the man from in front of him. “Vai!” Struck with terror, the butler dodged from the old man’s path as Leo charged to a baroque style cherry wood cabinet. From it he removed a worn, black leather case that he tucked under his arm. He finished buttoning his cuffs and Dionisio returned with a small, wide-brimmed black hat, which Leo snatched from him. He then plucked off his white zucchetto and slapped it into the bewildered priest’s hands.



“Allora, Signori,” Leo said to us, dropping the black hat on his head. “Andiamo.”



“You’ve forgotten one detail, Padre,” said Holmes, in reference to the pope’s new attire.



“Che?”



“L’anello.” Holmes held up his right hand and pointed to his fourth finger.



“Ah.” Leo pulled the fisherman’s ring from his finger and dropped it into the left pocket of the black cassock. The young priest then handed him a tall black umbrella, and Leo set its end to the floor with authoritative thud.



It is amazing how clothes can change the appearance of a man. Where once stood the proverbial Vicar of Christ on Earth, now stood a simple, venerable Italian priest. Strangely, he resembled the aged Italian cleric persona Holmes once adopted to avoid the notice of Professor Moriarty.



I glanced at Holmes and saw him giving me a knowing grin. “Very well then,” he said. “As the man says—let’s go.”

Interview with "Murder in the Vatican" author Ann Margaret Lewis.

After yesterday's guest blog by the very generous author of Murder in the Vatican, Ann Margaret Lewis, you didn't think things could get better, did you? 



Well, they did. 



Today, Ann Margaret Lewis has willingly submitted to questions from the A Pius Man blog.



You will notice that some of the questions are numbered differently.  These are questions that came with the press packet that I believed readers of this blog might be interested in. 



The questions I came up with are plainly numbered, with no additional lettering ... you'll see what I mean.



So, if you just want to skip to those quesitons I asked, you can ....



Here we go.



1. The Description for Murder in the Vatican says that each story is taken from the works of Arthur Conan Doyle. Care to elaborate?



Ann: Holmes biographer and friend, Dr. Watson, will often throw out the titles of cases Holmes has solved in the past, but he never tells you those stories. In the world of Sherlockian scholarship, these are called “the untold tales.” I took three of these little untold case references and told the stories for them. In the book, I introduce each story with the story quote from which each title originated.



2. Your previous works include Star Wars: the New Essential Guide to Aliens Species, for Random House. How did you decide to go from Star Wars to Sherlock Holmes?



Ann: I have loved Holmes since high school, and when I was in college I wanted to write a Holmes story. Of course, I didn’t have the real ability to write like Doyle at the time. So I put the idea aside…for about twenty years. When my husband and I were moving from New York, I found my old notes and thought—I can do this now! Just goes to show, never throw away your ideas. You never know when you may want them.



So – the decision to change from one genre to another came to me and was always with me, I suppose. He is the “classic” fandom.



3. What was it like working with characters created by another author? Was there any pressure to get everything pitch perfect?



Ann: Absolutely. I have worked in licensed properties (you mentioned Star Wars above) and when ever you work with someone else’s characters it is one’s job to be true to them. In Star Wars case, if you get it wrong, Lucasfilm’s licensing department comes after you. With Holmes, who is now largely public domain in the US, his loyal fans come after you. And they are far more scholarly and wise than most fans you can image. If Watson’s voice didn’t ring true, I was going to hear it and the book would fall flat on its face. So imitating Doyle and being true to the characters he create—i.e. being “orthodox” as it were—was of vital importance.



4. Since you have a degree in English Literature, should we ask how many times you read the original Sherlock Holmes stories?



Ann: I’ve read them so much I cannot even say. Before I’d write, I’d call up a random Holmes story online and just read it so I could get the voice going in my head. I read no other pastiches while I wrote. Only Doyle, because his voice is the only voice that mattered.



5. This blog is about a novel, A Pius Man, that focuses on Pope Pius XII during World War II. Since you are using the real life figure of Pope Leo XIII in your novel, how much historical research did you have to do before writing him as a character?



I love Pius XII. What a wonderful, saintly man – and so unjustly maligned.



Pope Leo gets the short end of the stick, too, I think in that he hasn’t been given recognition he deserves. I believe he should be on his way to canonization as well.



But to answer your question - with Leo, I did a lot of reading and research, both online and off. I did my best to read primary source material – his own writing, as well as writing of his contemporaries on him. I found the authorized biography – which was fantastic, and an article by the first journalist to interview a sitting pope (Leo, of course). The more I read, the more I loved this man. Leo was such a man of his time, and yet he had great vision of where the Church and world were going. Prophetic in so many ways, and prayerful. And very regal—he was the first pope not to rule the Papal States, and yet, he had been trained to do that. He was so fascinating I hungered to read more about him.



5a. Not only is Leo a character, he is also a narrator in Murder in the Vatican. What did you do to create a “voice” for someone who really existed?



A: You mean Holmes isn’t real? {Big cheesy grin} Seriously, though, Pope Leo was a writer himself, in fact one of the most prolific popes in history. So I read his writing—encyclicals mainly. He wrote about 85 of them. And I discovered that in the topics he covered, and how he addressed those topics, he was a man who was regal (he was nobility), extremely devoted to his faith (one would hope), and definitely loving and fatherly. This was confirmed when I discovered primary source material about him. I came across a great article by a contemporary journalist named James Creelman who personally met and interviewed Pope Leo—the first journalist to interview a pope. Creelman was an Agnostic/Protestant, but he was impressed by Leo’s brilliance as well his as soft-spoken, kindly nature. I also read a period biography that covered him quite well. Using works from that time helped me get a good picture of the type of man he was, and gave me good insight into his voice.



5b. How did you feel about fictionalizing Pope Leo XIII?



A: Popes are tricky guys to cover. Some people love them; some hate them simply because of who they are. I just wanted do him justice. He was a controversial figure in his own way, but a decent man who reigned at a transitional time for the Church. He was an important figure historically, and yet he is nearly forgotten. It mattered so much to me to get him right. And being Catholic I even asked him to pray for me. I made him, perhaps, a little more active than he really was. He was, after all, pretty old at the time the stories take place. But we’re not talking a Kung Fu action sequence or anything, so it’s all good.



5c. You write that Leo XIII had a reported “vision” of St. Michael battling Satan. Is that a true story?



A: It is something that was documented by those who knew him and who were present when it happened. It is, apparently, the origin for the Prayer of St. Michael that was, prior to Vatican II, said after every daily (low) Mass. This prayer is still said quite a bit, and I remember being told this very story when I was a child. I looked up references to it to make sure it wasn’t urban legend, but something documented. I was amazed to find that it was.

6. The last time that I noticed Sherlock Holmes coming anywhere near religion was in a novel called Night Watch, which had Holmes crossing paths with GK Chesterton's Father Brown. Since you have Sherlock at the Vatican itself, how do you have him deal with religion?



Ann: Holmes is respectful of religion, if doubtful. He isn’t an atheist— more of an agnostic, non-practicing Anglican. He questions a lot. But he is very respectful of religious belief, and does not mock it, or those who hold to religious practice. He sees it more, I think, as a gift he does not have. And yet – he recognizes holiness when he sees it. While he and Watson questioning on occasion, both are models of genuine tolerance.



6a. So you’d say being Catholic helped you with writing this book?



A: Absolutely. It gave me a starting point—a perspective and a body of knowledge other people may not have. I still had to do research on the church of the time, of course. I began attending a diocesan-approved Mass in the Extraordinary Form (i.e. the Traditional Latin Mass) so I could learn about the Mass as Leo said it. I was eager to share the church as it truly was and is, as opposed to Dan Brown’s version of it.



6b. What other books do you have in the works?



A: I have written one more Holmes piece called The Watson Chronicles that is more about Watson’s life near the end of his partnership with Holmes. I’m editing that now. Then I hope to jump into a historical novel that tells the true story of a priest in 1840s southern Indiana who was falsely accused of assaulting a woman in a confessional. Hopefully I can tell you more about that another time. :)



7. What else is on your reading list, besides the complete Sherlock Holmes? Do you think it affects your writing in any way?



Ann: I have a “to read” stack a mile high. Other mysteries (of other periods), Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth, too many books to count. And all of these simply enrich my body of knowledge to make me a better writer. With the mysteries, it keeps me focused in the genre, as I hope to write other types of mysteries other than Holmes.



8. Some writers outline. Some writers make stories up as they go along. Some even get bored when they figure out who the killer is. How does your writing process work?



Ann: Mine is a little of both. I write out a very basic outline, knowing where I want to go, with some clues for the sleuth. Then as I write my characters fill in the gaps. I don’t get bored with my killers, I try to do my best to make them leave a trail for the sleuths to find and that can be fun.



8a. Who else has tried this sort of story before?



A: “Pastiche” writing, or writing Holmes stories in imitation of Conan Doyle’s style, has been done by many authors. Nicholas Meyer, Isaac Asimov and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own son Adrian have given it a try. There are literally thousands of these kinds of stories published. (Curious folks and find an exhaustive database of Holmes-related fiction here: http://www.michael-procter.com/holmes/_index.html.) Many of these are takes on “untold tales” and all three of these very church mysteries have been tackled by other authors independently. But no one has written all three of the church mysteries mentioned in the original stories and collected them together in one volume.



8b. What is most difficult in writing a period piece like this?



A: Avoiding anachronism is definitely a biggie, but I think the hardest part for this project was imitating Conan Doyle’s voice. While I am familiar Doyle’s language, so is everyone else who has ever read Sherlock Holmes. I knew I’d have fans scrutinizing the text for mistakes. With Leo, I was imitating his voice as translated into English, so there was bound to be some leeway. In the Doyle’s case, you have his music or you don’t, and the pastiche will sink or swim depending on how well you sell it. It was an intimidating prospect.



8c. And this book has illustrations?



It sure does! That was one of the neat thing we managed to do to give it the flavor of the original stories. When the Holmes tales were first published, they were all illustrated by wonderful artists, Sydney Paget in particular. And it is one thing I think most pastiches are missing. Rikki Niehaus did a fabulous job with her drawings. She even used the right pen and ink technique. Her version of Holmes is just as I imagine him and her Pope Leo is spot on. She’s very talented and I can’t wait to see more work from her.



9. What, if anything, surprised you while working on Murder at the Vatican?



Ann: That one’s characters can take over and lead the story. Holmes started finding clues that I didn’t intend. He even found a dead body I hadn’t anticipated! Seriously, people think I’m schizophrenic when I describe how my characters can lead a story line and bring things to my attention that I hadn’t considered. But I have to say: if my characters aren’t real to me, they won’t be real to the readers. And with writing this book, Holmes and Leo both felt really quite real to me (Leo especially because he was and is a real person).



10. Do you have any advice to blog readers who are thinking about writing their own novels?



Ann: Whatever it is—finish it. You’ll get so much from just putting that last word on paper that’ll keep you going for more and more stories. That feeling of accomplishment is worth all of the hard work. And then…when it is done…you can actually try to sell it. So, get it done!



11. Your bio on the novel's webpage says that you are a trained soprano ... should we expect a tenor to at least be a suspect in the novel?



Ann: Nope—just a bunch of Italians—and none of them are Puccini.



12. Last chance: What do you think is the one thing we should remember about Murder at the Vatican?



Ann: That it is meant to be fun and lift your heart for a short time. I had a blast writing it, and I hope you have a blast reading it. That was my primary goal in creating it.



Thanks for having me on your blog! It’s been great meeting you.

We here at the A Pius Man blog would like to thank Madam Lewis for her time.  Murder in the Vatican can purchased through the publisher, wessexpress.com. It is also carried on ignatius.com and Amazon.  If readers have more questions, Ann can be reached by email via her web site: http://www.holmeschurchmysteries.com/.

But what is he when he's at Home? Other Novel Ideas.

I've had people in my Real Life tell me that they're confused about what I'm selling at the moment.



I post on my personal pages about what I'm working on, while at the same time inviting them to look over A Pius Man. 



So, it might be a good idea to clear things up.



To do that, I think it's time to allow you a glimpse into my dark, dark mind.



A Pius Man is only one of my thrillers. My thriller universe is interconnected, and borderline incestuous, if you read them in the order they were written. Eventually, every character in my thriller novels comes to know everyone else … if they're still alive.



And all of them ended up in A Pius Man.



Summer Death Camp, book one of the Death of an Alois Boy series.

 I had a high school that I really, really didn't like. I started writing a murder mystery series that, in the outline, started off as acting out little grudges. In the mysteries, the class pornographer wannabe ended up face down in a bucket of KY jelly. A bully who made constant KKK jokes ended up lynched with a noose made of piano wire. The “hero” was only the protagonist because he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he had the inside track because he was hip-deep in the high school stupidity.  Sort of like Murder, She Wrote with teenage serial killers.



The character's name was Matthew Kovach. He started off being modeled on me, and he bored the crap out of me. Though, in my outline, by book four, he stopped looking like me, and became far more interesting.



He shows up in A Pius Legacy.



It Was Only on Stun

It Was Only on Stun was a novel of Sean A.P. Ryan, mercenary. He was doing security at a science fiction convention out in Long Island. It was called C-Con … no relation to I-Con, also out on Long Island, where I had volunteered once or twice.  An actress from the Balkans is about to be a major star in an American TV series that threatens to make her popular world wide--and since she had been driven out by all sides in the Balkan conflict, all sides want her dead. 



This book had everything, including two incompetent “IRA hitmen” being hunted down by Interpol Agent Maureen McGrail, and there was also Middle Earth's Most Wanted Elven Assassin … don't ask. Matthew Kovach appeared as an author, hawking his books “Tales from a Catholic High school” that looked like “Jean Shepard meets Jack the Ripper.”  It was one part comedy, one part mystery, and it ended in a massive shootout, playing hide and seek in the backwoods of Long Island, and a sword fight.



Maureen McGrail and Sean A.P. Ryan both show up in A Pius Man.



I also have a hostage novel set in a Barnes and Noble, only one of the hostages is related to a mafia don, and his "fixer" shows up.  A man named Jonathan Koenig.  Jon Koenig shows up in A Pius Stand (book three of the Pius Trilogy).



Too Secret Service, Et Al.

Too Secret Service is about a Secret Service Agent who was trained to eliminate any and all threats tot he life of the President.  During an international "incident," he is framed for attempted murder, and needs to not only get his head attached to his shoulders, but has to stop the President from being nuked.  However, CIA Assassin Catherine Miller is also investigating the same threat, and he is in her cross hairs.



Dances With Werewolves. Another Secret Service tale.  Catherine Miller has been sent to assassinate a Haitian President using voodoo to scare the natives -- human sacrifices of the tourists will scare practically anyone.  The Prime Minister, and high priest, is a little slicker, and she needs to hunt him down in New Orleans.

Meanwhile, my Secret Service Agent is investigating a laughable threat to the President--a prediction made by a Wiccan coven in San Francisco.  He stops laughing when the one who made the prediction is found vivisected.

And Matthew Kovach also wandered into this story too.  He's up in Boston trying to create a fiction universe; he wants to do to Massachusetts what Stephen Kind did to Maine.  And it looks like he found an interesting subject: Joshua Melasure's Community of the Old Time Religion.

Enter the Kraft Brothers.  Each own a magic shop in a different part of the country.  "Merle" of San Francisco works for the Federal government as an expert on weird; he also doesn't need lock picking tools.  "Tal" is a stage magician in New Orleans. And it looks like the third one, "Dalf," is dealing in magic of a slightly darker nature.

Imagine Live and Let Die, updated with Goths, vampires, and Wiccans.



Night of the Assassins-- Everyone's past comes back to haunt them.  Literally.  A guest star is one Scott "Mossad" Murphy.



Giovanni Figlia was a bit player in Too Secret Service novels, and he shows up in A Pius Man.



And, later, I go completely off the tracks. Literally. I have three series in the works that have nothing to do with any of the above. In one, I've got five books already written, and the other series has one book that I'm expanding into (probably) three.



Tales of White Ops: If I were designing the future, it would look … a lot like science fiction of the past, only better-looking. Take a group like a interstellar Templar Knights, pit them against two Sauron-like enemies, and then create a special forces unit within these alien Templars. Take one part space opera, one part Babylon 5 as written by David Weber, and one part Mission: Impossible as written by John Ringo, and you get the idea. Add a great military genius who looks like the wrong end of a horse, a psychotic President who stole an election, a telepathic special forces unit made up of complete sociopaths, and a crackpot who likes to play with nuclear bombs, and you get the idea.  I also blow up an amusement park currently named Disney Planet, have an alien mafia with its own special forces killers, and it spirals out from there.



In this series My hero's name was "Sean Patrick Ryan" -- now you know why every mention of the 21st century Ryan makes a point of calling him Sean A.P. Ryan.  Five books have been written in this series, and I'm on number six.



The Last Survivors.

A little something I co-authored with a friend of mine (or I was Shanghaied, I'm fuzzy on the details), it had been proposed to me as a dystopia in a little corner of the world that had been nuked to within an inch of its life (San Francisco). Then I asked about the rest of the world. And I asked how the rest of the politics, and the economy, and the dynamics of the society worked … and somewhere along the line, I started writing parts of it.



I had suggested a character, a spy exiled to San Francisco for being "Inconvenient," with the capital I.  My friend wanted to name him "Mr. Anderson."  When I started writing, I called him Kevin (can you tell I'm a smartass?)



 Book one is written, book two is half finished, and it's outlined to book seven.



The Last Survivors, 2093.  Three years after the minor nuclear war known as the April Fool's War, Kevin Anderson is going to take out the nuclear arsenal of the Islamic Republic of France.  His mission is blown by politicians on the Senate Foriegn Intelligence Oversight Committee.  It's time to enforce term limits.  But how do you burn a spy like that, and where do you send him?  Hint: not Miami.



The Last Survivors: Professional Ethics.  San Francisco's most famous misanthrope is a professional assassin, the last of his guild.  When a serial killer starts using San Francisco as his playground, using methods out of the assassin's playbook, it's time to go hunting.



Unnamed Vampire Project.

I don't know what prompted this particular work. It's probably because I had seen one too many vampire novels and movies so mess around with the original concept that I wanted to get back to basics. Joss Whedon at least had vampires react to crosses, and used holy water as a weapon, and then he stuck them in the smallest town he could find in California. I wanted to examine vampires from a more real-world perspective. I'm a history major: What would vampires be doing for the last century? And, because I'm a philosophy nerd, I also wanted to answer the question of why religious artifacts would work on vampires; are they automatically evil, and if so, when did free will get chucked out the window? In my vampire universe, vampires use communion wafers as suicide pills. And you can do creative things with rosaries, and full-immersion baptismal pools. I'm come up with numerous titles to this project, and absolutely none of them work—and half of them have been used already. 



And, then, at the end of the day, there's



A Pius Man.

Professor David Gerrity, PhD, has been murdered while on sabbatical looking through the Vatican Archives.  His assassin is blown up shortly after the murder, and the killer's corpse lands on the car of Giovanni Figlia, head of Vatican security.   Figlia has enough problems-- Secret Service Agent Wilhelmina Goldberg has come to audit Vatican security, and a Egyptian cop Hashim Abasi has come to coordinate the Pope's visit to Egypt.

At the same time, an al-Qaeda strategist has been murdered ... and no one is claiming credit.  Scott "Mossad" Murphy comes to Rome to investigate, and finds a beautiful German spy there to help him, Manana Shushurin.

And lurking in the background is a priest with commando skills, a Pope who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals, and a highly destructive Sean A.P. Ryan is working at the Vatican.

It has philosophy, theology, history, war, international politics, geopolitics, advanced weaponry, a mystery, betrayals, plots, three conspiracies, several counter-plots, mass murder, and enough high explosives to level a few dozen buildings.

It's fun.