Day of Confession [Hardcover]

Allan Folsom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 1998

A heart-thumping whirlwind of action, suspense & murder that reaches deep into the highest levels of Vatican power & uncovers a demonic scheme to massacre hundreds of thousands of Chinese in an attempt to establish a new Holy Roman Empire on the Chinese mainland in the twenty-first century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This massive thriller pits a scheming prince of the Church who believes he was once Alexander the Great against the Addison brothers--Harry, a Hollywood lawyer, and Danny, a Vatican priest. It seems that Danny had the bad luck to hear another cardinal's confession outlining a heinous plot to poison China's water supply in order to win the Vatican bankers a multi-billion-dollar contract to rebuild it--and of course to take advantage of the opportunity to convert a quarter of the world's population and ensure the Church's world domination into the next century. Spanning the globe from Vatican City to Beijing, from Los Angeles to Switzerland, the action never stops. And whenever it seems to falter for more than a paragraph, someone among Folsom's picaresque cast of minor characters (a nun, a dwarf, a CIA station chief, a beautiful television journalist, and an African poet, among others) turns up just in time to give it a nudge. The narrative is not as fluid as it could be, and the plot might have been devised by a conspiracy theorist with a taste for chaos physics, but fans of Folsom's intense novel The Day After Tomorrow won't be disappointed. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

A world-famous assassin, a power-hungry villain, a beleaguered hero, a plot to take over the largest country on earth. Folsom's frantically paced follow-up to his bestselling The Day After Tomorrow throws together all the raw materials of a first-rate thriller and proves that ingredients alone do not a meal make. Four days after Cardinal Rosario Parma is assassinated in Rome, hotshot L.A. entertainment lawyer Harry Addison gets a frantic phone message from his estranged brother, Danny, a Vatican priest. Shortly thereafter, Harry hears that Danny has died in a bus explosion. When he flies to Rome to claim the body, he discovers that Danny is the prime suspect in Parma's murder?and that he's still alive. The novel then follows two parallel plots. Harry tries to find Danny and clear his name; meanwhile, the sinister Cardinal Umberto Palestrina, who thinks he's the reincarnation of Alexander the Great, plots to make China the site of a new Holy Roman Empire. It's that Alexander the Great touch that pushes an already teetering story line over the edge, where everything is explained by shorthand (the estrangement between the Addison brothers) or circular logic (Palestrina is feared and powerful because he inspires fear and wields power). There's a lot of action, mostly to hide the fact that the cardboard characters generate as little sympathy as the thousands of Chinese deaths that are Step One in Palestrina's master plan. Instead of being disturbing or controversial, Folsom's mix of religion and politics approaches comic-book parody. Agent, Aaron Priest.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (September 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316287555
• ISBN-13: 978-0316287555
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #879,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a stunning page-turner, December 15, 2000

By 

Tina Morris "schultheiss" (Rockville, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Day of Confession (Mass Market Paperback)

Unlike most of Folsom's other fans, I read this, his second book, first and am currently devouring "the day after tomorrow". Most people liked the latter better, I disagree so far. "Day of confession" is an athmospherically dense and gripping thriller that will not let you put the book down until the last page is turned. Folsom is a gifted and well-informed writer who has no trouble creating believable scenarios on three continents at the same time. He carefully develops his charcters and puts together a complex, yet not too confusing and improbably plot that remains fast-paced until the end. Folsom's protagonist is a wealthy LA lawyer from the glitz world of movie moguls who flies to Italy in response to an emergency phone message by a brother he has not seen or heard from in years. Before he knows what hit him, he is engulfed in a major international crisis with the Vatican at the center. This book is up there in quality with Higgins' and Ludlum's finest. Don't plan anything else for the weekend once you start reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed, January 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Day of Confession (Mass Market Paperback)

I was really disappointed by "Day of Confession." I had loved "the Day After Tomorrow," and when an uncle recommended Folsom's latest, I ran out and bought it as the first read for a trip to Hawaii.

Boy was I disappointed. Although the basic premise of the story is rather preposterous (the Vatican as architect of global genocide-c'mon people, the Middle Ages are over!), I still found it to be intriguing-Folsom essentially substitutes the Vatican's walls for the Kremlin's, as an impenetrable home for secret dealings. Many of the characters are interesting, and the action in the first half really moves you along. Unfortunately, the ending, and events leading up to it, are completely ridiculous.

The love tryst, the raid on the Vatican, the brothers chanting guttural Marine Corps slogans before "doing-in" the bad guy (who slaughtered just about everyone who crossed his path)--all preposterous.

All in all, I'm sorry I wasted my moeny on this book. Come to think of it, I didn't like the last book my uncle recommended either (Road to Omaha).

There's plenty of better thrillers out there than this. Let's hope that Folsom gets back on track with his next novel.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nowhere near as good as "Day After Tomorrow", August 13, 1999

By 

P. Connors "Colonialpara" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Day of Confession (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm really glad I didn't buy this book (even in paperback). I've done a lot of reading over the last four months and have rediscovered the joys (and money saving value) of the public library system. My disappointment with this book is based on a level of expectations created by Mr. Folsom's captivating debut novel.

From the start, I had difficulty getting into this book and staying with it. For some reason, I just didn't care about Harry and Danny Addison and that's a shame because the premise behind the plot was actually a good one. It should have made for an exciting read and yet somehow, it just fell flat.

The most interesting character (and the one Mr. Folsom seems to have spent the most time developing) is the terrorist, Thomas Kind. The author's descriptions of his background and the perverse sexual pleasure he receives from his barbaric murders of numerous members of the cast is chilling when you read it. Despite his anti- social behavior, Thomas Kind is the most interesting character in this novel that runs approximately 200 pages too long.

Allan Folsom has written two bestsellers back to back. Just because the book is a bestseller doesn't mean it's a captivating read. Day of Confession isn't. That means Mr. Folsom is batting .500 (which isn't bad). But, based on this experience, when his next book comes out--I'm going to the library.