McElroy's chapter-long digressions into extended interviews with these adults distract from the book's narrative momentum. William D. Montalbano Jove 176 pp. Naturally, it wasn't strictly legal, and, as you might expect, the Latin American drug cartel he stole it from wasn't willing to let the theft go unanswered. But he's not living on the straight and narrow, precisely. They don't necessarily condone the violence he sometimes feels is necessary to make the problems go away, but they certainly appreciate their going away, one way or another.
Basilica is the sort of thriller that sparks envy in genre writers.
Montalbano's characters are strong and clearly defined, and he maintains a smooth pace that quickly builds narrative momentum. Only rarely does the reader have to slow down and read carefully through a plot-dense passage, which is a godsend for the genre. Too often, thriller writers excel at delivering the action only to let their text get bottlenecked around complicated plot machinations. That Montalbano manages to do this in a novel peopled mostly by priests, lay brothers and a pope is an accomplishment of oxymoronic proportions. But Basilica 's greatest feature is Brother Paul himself, I think.