City of Secrets: The Truth Behind the Murders at the Vatican [Hardcover]

John Follain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2003

On the night of Monday May 4the 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 historically 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 Roman Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty three year old Cedric 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 enquiry. But as John Follain's hard-hitting expose shows, the official report was a travesty, a tissue of suppositions, contradictions, and omissions. Based on an exhaustive 3 year investigation - the first independent attempt to establish the truth - 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 dares not confess. Echoing the pace and plotting of a high-stakes thriller, Follain's true-life tale of intrigue moves from the guards' barracks and the pope's palace in Vatican City to Paris, Berlin and the Swiss Alps, and features a fascinating case: an old, suffering John Paul II; his chief bodyguard, formerly accused of spying for the Soviet bloc; a mysterious priest punished by the Vatican;;; and the powerful Opus Dei sect.. Timely and explosive, City Of Secrets is the story of a still-unsolved crime committed on holy territory and of a systematic attempt to hide the fatal failings of a security force charged with protecting one of the world's most influential leaders.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On May 4, 1998, Col. Alois Estermann, commander of the Swiss Guards, the Vatican force that protects the pope, was found shot dead in his apartment inside Vatican City, along with his wife. Also shot dead in the room was a young Swiss guardsman, Cedric Tornay. Three hours after the bodies were discovered, the Vatican released a statement naming Tornay as the killer, his motive a "fit of madness." Not so fast, thought Follain, author (Jackal, etc.) and Rome-based correspondent for the Sunday Times of London, who also figured that investigating the story would allow him insight into Vatican ways. This book presents his findings, written as a first-person investigation. This technique generates moderate suspense, as Follain follows up leads, interviews tangential figures in the case (the man who succeeded Estermann as head of the Swiss Guards, assorted clerics, the accused killer's mother et al.), and it allows for vivid firsthand accounts of the Vatican and its officials, as well as of London, Paris and Switzerland, where Follain's digging also took him. As Follain turns up evidence-mostly circumstantial and anecdotal-that the murders were more complicated than the Vatican opined, including apparent ties between Estermann and the conservative group Opus Dei and a possible homosexual affair between Estermann and Tornay, and as his outrage grows, his writing turns more lurid: his portrait of Monsignor Alois Jehle, chaplain to the Swiss Guards, which closes this account, drips with personal distaste. While by no means an objective account, then, the book does provide unusual access to inner Vatican circles and demonstrates that even those busy in pursuit of the divine can be human, perhaps all too human. 16 page b&white photo insert.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

"Filled with explosive revelations!" screeches the publicity, so Follain, a Rome-based correspondent for London's Sunday Times, had better deliver. Follain insists that the Vatican engaged in a huge cover-up in 1998 after the commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife, and a vice corporal were found dead, evidently victims of a double murder/suicide.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (January 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066209544
• ISBN-13: 978-0066209548
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,669,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sex, lies and secrets, April 20, 2003

By 

Peter Lorenzi (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Secrets: The Truth Behind the Murders at the Vatican (Hardcover)

John Follain investigates the deaths of three people in the heart of the Vatican, including a young soldier and the commander of the pope's famous Swiss Guards. The evidence he finds is neither surprising nor inconsistent with the original statement about the circumstances of the death as presented the Vatican. What's interesting is how he finds his evidence and how what was not said in the original inquiry led to the pursuit of a better explanation. In the process, Follain's story reads more like Robert Ludlum mystery or a Nelson DeMille travelogue, as he tracks down people, asks first innocent then probing questions, and effectively if incompletely re-constructs the story behind the deaths.

The Catholic Church and no less the Vatican has been severely damaged by its own secrecy and secrets. While some stories are not worth taking public, an obsession with secrecy produces more distrust than does the hard, candid side of the story. Homosexuality and Opus Dei, two sometimes tawdry secrets of the church, get an airing here, and the most saddening point is the self-illusion of secrecy the church seems intent on maintaining.

Follain also finds that the storied Swiss Guards are much more ceremonial window-dressing than an effective security or intelligence force. The members of this small cadre, the ones Follain contacts, most of them disillusioned or discontented, make a pretty strong case that some men join the Guards for the wrong reasons and the Guard itself seems to be used for the wrong reasons. Tradition seem more important than a clear mission.

It is the misunderstanding and misapplication that lie behind the story of the three deaths. Although the conclusion is not dramatic, neither is it melodramatic. And it is candid and honest, not a Hollywood screenplay, not a sanitized version, and not what the mother of one of the victim's might want. And, in the telling, there is something worth reading.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 'Secrets' investigates violent deaths in Vatican, April 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: City of Secrets: The Truth Behind the Murders at the Vatican (Hardcover)

Putting it mildly, John Follain knows the territory when it comes to writing about the Vatican.
In addition to serving as a Rome-based correspondent for London's Sunday Times, he was able to get behind the scenes in Vatican City and conduct his own investigation into the shocking deaths of three people in the Vatican in 1998.
"No one can remember witnessing an episode of such violence inside the city-state," writes Follain.
City of Secrets, which reads like a fast-moving novel, is as much about the inner workings of the Vatican -- the Swiss Guard in particular -- as it is about the deaths themselves. It sounds strange to say this about a true story but, if I write more, I'll give the "plot" away.
Follain does a good job of bringing the main people in this matter to life, and his ultimate conclusions are, by turns, simpler and more complex than the Vatican's "official story".
this is a book you'll sail through, and at the end, you'll appreciate the author's investigative efforts as much as his writing ability. You'll also have a good sense of how conspiracy theories come into being, and grow, because of officialdom's reluctance to come clean.
-- Ed Halloran,

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Despite extensive research, there isn't much of a story here, February 10, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Secrets: The Truth Behind the Murders at the Vatican (Hardcover)

The problem with nonfiction crime writing is exactly what the genre implies --- there's no making things up. While authors like James Patterson or Sue Grafton can decide to swap murderers on a whim if something isn't working, true crime scribes such as Ann Rule or John Berendt have no such prerogative. They transcribe just the facts, ma'am. And that is the predicament with a book like John Follain's CITY OF SECRETS.

Follain, the Rome correspondent for London's Sunday Times, is a nonfiction veteran best known for chronicling Carlos the Jackal. In his latest effort, Follain investigates the May 1998 slayings of three people connected to the Swiss Guard, the pope's protectors: the unit's commander, his wife and a lance corporal. The official Vatican explanation, released within hours of the deaths, was that young Cédric Tornay murdered Colonel Alois Estermann and his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, in a fit of madness. While the Vatican effectively canonizes Estermann, it vilifies Tornay to the point of denying his mother access to the official inquiry.

Like any good reporter, Follain smelled a story when the Vatican dismissed the case so perfunctorily. He spent three years investigating "what really happened," interviewing current and former Swiss Guard members, Catholic clergy of all levels and forensic experts. Unfortunately, Follain did not seem to realize, upon the finish of his exhaustive research, that there wasn't much of a story.

The book is billed as the untold story behind an unsolved crime. Yet there aren't many revelations in Follain's book, other than the fact that the archaically constructed Catholic Church has not changed with the times. Perhaps Follain is a victim of bad timing --- this is not a true revelation to anyone who has followed the news for the past 12 months. In fact, considering the disturbing allegations of child molestation that recently rocked the church, Follain's indictment of a Swiss Guard system that overworks and underpays its emotionally unsatisfied employees seems a little quaint. So the Vatican forces its employees to go to church on Sunday. Swiss Guard enlistment is undertaken entirely by free will. Anyone who chooses to work for the pope should expect a little religious fervor.

Of course, Follain explores other points, too. He deconstructs the on-the-job abuse Tornay tolerated during his three-plus years of service. He discusses but never draws conclusions about an alleged affair between Tornay and Estermann. He never finds the smoking gun that makes crime novels (whether fiction or nonfiction) truly worth the read. Follain finds many facts but draws few compelling conclusions. That the Vatican did not want to cast the Pope's security force as a bunch of incompetent nutcases surely is not a surprise.

Follain devotes very little of the book to Estermann, instead concentrating on Tornay. Although the idealistic young man could certainly have been better dealt with during his tour of duty --- the last-minute denial of a medal he had apparently rightly earned is seen as the catalyst for the killings --- that still doesn't justify the murders. It's hard to buy Follain's position, almost from page one, that others also bear responsibility for Tornay's actions. For all intents and purposes, there was no pre-warning for his actions. No matter how much you hate your boss, there's no excuse for killing him. The guilt is Tornay's and Tornay's alone.

CITY OF SECRETS offers some interesting insights into the workings of the Vatican and the frailty of the once-dynamic pope. Unfortunately, Follain is determined to narrate the book while revealing very little of himself. What he does reveal is either bland or, at the most, a tad self-righteous. He's a competent writer but not a creative one. He should have either kept himself out of it or made himself more of a character. Perhaps if he had explained more about his interest in the Vatican and what he has surely seen during his years on the Roman beat, he would have found his hook. Without it, this remains a collection of facts sans revelation. It's a shame --- a big revelation in the final pages could have salvaged the effort. Too bad he couldn't have invented one. That's the trouble with nonfiction.

--- Reviewed by Toni Fitzgerald