Customer Reviews

The Holy Bullet

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I couldn't put this down. It's fascinating and provocative. I believe there is much truth to this historical fiction. The Vatican is just this complex and the story is riveting.

Luis Miguel Rocha may not be a household name in America --- but just wait!

"The Holy Bullet" is the follow-up to his International best-seller, "The Last Pope", and it proves to be equally as exciting and entertaining as its' predecessor. Following in the wake of the mysterious death (or murder?) of Pope John Paul I, a group of operatives inside the Vatican are still struggling to make sense of who could be behind the death of the holiest of holy. When they come up against a cast of suspicious characters including a Muslim who continues to have visions of the Virgin Mary, an organized crime syndicate and a team of rogue priests --- they realize time is of the essence if they are to solve Pope John Paul I's death and potentiality save the life of his successor, Pope John Paul II.

Mixing fact and fiction together again, Rocha has spun a tale of intrigue that will please fans of historical fiction and international thrillers, alike!

I actually love fiction based on this subject - Dan Brown's Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, Steve Berry's Cotton Malone Series, Paul Sussman's The Last Secret of The Temple. So, I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, I had a little difficulty in getting into the book.

I'm normally a very fast reader and don't have trouble following the plots of thriller/mysteries. But, I found the plot a little hard to follow as there is much jumping around from the present to 1981 to 1941 to 1983 and back to the present.
This story takes up where The Last Pope lets off: Karol Jozef Wojtyla is now Pope John Paul II. And, Mehmet Ali Agca shot the Pope and attempted to assassinate him. The real question is why? And, that is what the book attempts to answer in a conspiracy plot involving the Catholic Church, Opus Dei, the KGB, the CIA, and the President of the United States.

Sarah Monteiro is a present day journalist who is dragged into an murder/cover up when she is threatened to turn over a list containing, supposedly, those involved in the murder of Pope John Paul 1. Interwoven with this plot is Pope John Paul ii's attempts to get to the bottom of the attempts on his life.

Add to that a muslim, Abu Rashid who seems to know more about this - from visits from the Virgin Mary herself.

There are two plot twists both is the present day and in 1983 if you hang in there. One thing I found difficult was that the author kept throwin in new characters without showing or foreshadowing who they were. this may work on film but not very well on the written page.

Once I got past the first 130, it became easier to read. I liked the plot. I just thought that, as written, it would be easier to follow as a film.

If you haven't read The Last Pope, it might be helpful if you went back and read that first.

I am waiting eagerly for the new Dan Brown, and I was very happy to find this book first.

The author's notes at the end of the book would indicate that he's an insider in the world of Vatican intrigue, so while the book is a novel, you get the feeling reading it that many of the historical events/crimes surrounding the assassination attempt on John Paul II did happen the way Luis Rocha portrays them. It's very eye-opening for that reason, and as far as action and plotting go, this book does not disappoint!

I am also a fan of THE LAST POPE, which is Rocha's first book. I bought that one in paperback after reading HOLY BULLET and it was also illuminating and very entertaining (it deals with the mysterious death of John Paul I in 1978, which the author seems to feel was murder and not natural death.

I enjoy fiction-thriller stories that involve the vatican (Dan Brown), but this one was a little too complex and jumped around a bit too much for me to follow the main plot. There are many characters and sometimes their development is too thin to keep track of it all ... somewhat confusing at times. Overall, it was an average read and I would still recommend.

As is apparent from the other reviews, what you get out of this book depends a lot on what you were looking for.

If you want an action-packed international thriller about evil deeds and religious mysteries, a la Robert Ludlum, you will find this a passable effort, but with long-winded description interfering with the pacing, and requiring more mental effort than the material deserves.

If you want a plausible fictionalized account of violence and corruption around the Vatican in the late 70s and early 80s, you'll find a few pieces of that book but they're mixed in with lots of implausible stuff and pure fiction.

If you want an impossibly over-the-top, plot-driven, techno-thriller like Dan Brown writes, you'll find this too mild and plausible, a pale substitute at best.

I think the author is trying for something more ambitious than any of these things, the closest comparison I have read in the last few years is Robert Wilson's A Small Death in Lisbon. It's an attempt to weave some human meaning into chaotic, overlapping events based on a combination of history and imagination. Both this book and Wilson's start out as conventional thrillers, then fool you by magnifying details that are important to the characters, but not the plot. Bits and pieces overlap in surprising ways. Most of the characters are initially presented as evil in simple ways, then evolve into more complex, flawed people with some redeeming qualities (but still pretty evil). Finally, like Wilson's book, the edifice collapses, the author is unable to bring things to resolution. Depending on your taste, you may feel you have wasted a lot of thinking on what is ultimately a mediocre book, or you may enjoy what you got. You will certainly think more about this book after you put it down than you would any standard thriller.

The best writers of this type are Umberto Eco and, a bit further afield, Thomas Pynchon and vastly far afield, Jim Thomson. Don't misunderstand, this book doesn't hold a candle to any of those authors' works, either in quality or in demands on the reader. But I think this is what the author was attempting, and I respect the effort.

This is a failed attempt at a novel that ends up being a third-rate thriller with some very interesting extras. I suspect the most and least superficial readers will enjoy it more than the ones in between. So read it either very fast or very carefully.

it's an intricate, complex, non-stop action and intrigue-filled thriller. i especially appreciated the parts based on truth. i always wondered about this attempted assassination on the real pope's life. not sure why others here seem so negative.

It's like a puzzle, this book. It's a fast-paced, satisfying thriller. Always fascinating to be inside the Vatican. I recommend.

Cashing in on the success of the Da Vinci code, and Angels and Demons (still showing at the movies at time of writing this review) this dark dealings at the vatican is not that great unfortunately.
It's hard to understand what exactly the author was trying to pull off with this criminals and cardinal mystery whodunnit, based on real world events.
I'm old enough to remember the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, I'm also old enough to remember The Saint (aka Simon Templar). The two are about as connected as caviar and bananas!
Add to that long winded descriptive pages, and then facts glossed over for continuity, rumors and hints, and a lot of mmmmm what if? and the end result is a bit of a mess.
I feel a bit sorry for the author (Rocha) who probably had this book on the back burner for years, only to see it eclipsed but much better work on the same subject by people like the excellent Dan Brown, but that's life. No real surprises, and crawls to a dull ending. 3 stars for effort

The Holy Bullet is a sequel to The Last Pope by the same author, Luis M. Rocha. For clarity purposes in achieving full idea of what's going on in this novel, one should read The Last Pope first, especially getting to know the characters and sequence of the story line. The author does not include a statement that certain facts and locations are legitimate as in The Last Pope, one does pause to think whether this novel is all fiction or partly fiction. Yes, he does continue to intimate the suspicious death of Pope John Paul I, which aid readers who haven't read The Last Pope yet.

Nonetheless, this novel is entertaining despite the scenes goes back to the past of Pope John Paul II's tenure and then jump forward is a little disconcerting. This is a page thriller where the reader can read this novel in one day or read it slowly as I did. If a reader is a fast reader just to get through the book, then that reader will miss a lot of the intricate and complex scenes/information that the author wrote.

Take your time reading this novel and enjoy the ride...aloha!