Customer Reviews

The Mosaic Virus

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Unlike Mock's excellent, first, and much more personal book, Borrowing Time: A Latino Sexual Odyssey, The Mosaic Virus is a well researched , tightly plotted, and fast paced medical-political thriller that wears its learning lightly and plausibly. Mock swiftly introduces us to a series of religious figures -- mostly at the Vatican -- in the 1970's. Among them are the power behind the throne Cardinal Siri, the more mysterious Cardinal Matta, and, just called to the Papal See -- a younger and far more innocent Argentine Priest whose main function so far has been to confirm or debunk candidates for sainthood. The novel takes on more serious complications with the unexplained deaths of younger Catholic priests in the U.S. Is the Soviet Union behind it, the C.I.A. or another secret organization trying to destabilize the Catholic Church? Young Father Javier's journey to enlightenment takes him around the world and into increasing peril, and not merely to his life either, but potentially to his spiritual health. What he stumbles into is a secret cabal involved in biological warfare with medical implications for his time with frightening results right up to our own era. While I missed the lovely, warm, autobiographical touches that made Mock's first book such a favorite, there's no question that this novel moves quickly and succinctly to it's surprising ending. Not all of the characters are equally well drawn -- several remain mere sketches. And a few of the plot twists arent' as well worked out as they could be. Still, Mosaic Virus is a good, thoughtful, at times paranoia-inducing, winter's day read.

BOOK REVIEW: The Mosaic Virus

REVIEW BY TRACY BAIM

Copyright by The Windy City Times

2007-01-10

Chicagoan Carlos T. Mock is a doctor and his new novel, The Mosaic Virus (

Floricanto Press, paperback, edited by Katherine V. Forrest ) , makes full

use of his medical background to create a tale of murder and intrigue during

the early 1980s.

Mock, who is well-known as a supporter of GLBT, AIDS and Latino causes in

Chicago, has set his newest book in the Vatican, the U.S., and Cape Town,

South Africa, as he sends readers around the world in search of the cause of

a mysterious virus killing priests--a virus that is strikingly similar to the

new plague just being discovered among gay men in the U.S.

Jesuit Priest Javier Barraza is our hero, trying to fight against repressive

Catholic ideas as well as his own longing for a childhood sweetheart--a

woman now working for the FBI. The two met as teenagers in Argentina, and

Special Agent Lillian Davis-Lodge has made sure she meets up with her friend

again years later as they both search for the truth. The book is full of

intricate medical details, but it is not too intense for someone who does

not understand the inner workings of a virus. We follow Barraza and

Davis-Lodge as they try to unravel an onion of power and deceit that goes

all the way to the White House and the Pope--starting with World War II and

ending in 1983. Mock has used actual history as a backdrop, adjusting

timelines and some facts to fit his fictional story, but that does not take

away from the mystery and suspense.

The Mosaic Virus works by presenting intriguing ideas that work precisely

because they could be true. The best science fiction works when it is just

one layer away from the reality we all think we know. And, in fact, there

have been theories professed by activists that the HIV virus itself could

have been a man-made virus that simply moved beyond its initial intended

targets and use. Mock even involves former Nazi scientists living in Cape

Town, experimenting with a new group of subjects, Blacks in Apartheid South

Africa.

In the "real world" just this past weekend, the Vatican's pick for

archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, resigned after admitting he had

worked with the Polish Communist-era secret police, according to The New

York Times. There are many empires of power Mock tackles in The Mosaic

Virus, but despite so many conspiracy theories, Mock has managed to write an

accessible story of a parallel universe that just might not be parallel

after all.

Carlos Mock has crafted an extraordinary tale of international intrigue in the Tom Clancy tradition. Through a dark labyrinth of government, religion and medical research gone mad, he threads the powerful love story of a Latino Catholic priest and a woman intelligence operative. And Mock keeps you guessing and gasping right to the last paragraph. This book should definitely be a movie.

-- Patricia Nell Warren is author of THE FRONT RUNNER and other bestsellers

Mosaic Virus, by Carlos T. Mock, Floricanto Press, [...]

By Richard LaBontew from Books to Watch out For

It's 1983, and young Catholic priests are dying mysteriously. A concerned

Vatican calls in hotshot Father Javier Barraza, an Argentinian-born Jesuit

with a built-in disdain for his Church's more repressive dogmas - and more

longing in his soul for a childhood sweetheart, now a very special FBI

agent, than a priest of his stature ought to have - to investigate the viral

epidemic decimating America's priesthood. Part medical thriller and part

Vatican expose (quite reminiscent of church-insider Andrew Greeley's many

novels set in the shadowy world of Vatican politics, ambition, and ego),

Mock's timely novel stitches together Catholic homophobia, AIDS conspiracy

musings, and one particular Cardinal's thuggish self-interest, as the duo

dig into decades of criminal cover-ups and deadly deceit - an investigation

into the unleashing of a horrific "mosaic virus" that causes Barraza to

question his Catholic faith. AIDS and the Vatican intersect most

imaginatively when, as characters, real-life flight attendant Gaetan Dugas,

said to be Patient Zero of the AIDS epidemic, is seduced as a seminarian by

Francis Cardinal Spellman, whose queer ways are the stuff of legendary lore.

That's the kind of kinky heresy that gives this book its zip. Mock, at one

time a practicing doctor, gets pretty detailed with medical facts and

theoretical extrapolations; his story, brisk enough to carry readers over

the expository bits, ends with the priest and the FBI agent flying to an

unnamed destination with an antidote that could end an epidemic - until, in

something of a cliffhanger, a plane - their plane? - is shot down. Seems a

sequel is in the works...

I really enjoyed this novel. As a thriller, it's well-paced and exciting. As magical realism, it is by turns both beautiful and terrifying. I especially enjoyed the passages from the diary of Gaetan Dugas and the way we the readers get into the mind and soul of Javier Barraza. Carlos Mock made some very, very complex characters come to life. Fan of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons will love this book.

A chillingly imagined story of the virus that became AIDS. Carlos T. Mock invites you into a seductive behind-the-scenes world at the Vatican, hinting at abuses of power and leaving no doubt the author knows what he's writing about. You begin to suspect he may have spent time there himself. He's certainly qualified to write about AIDS from the medical side. Whether this account of an international conspiracy that gave birth to AIDS is fictional or real-life, it makes a compelling story.

Mosaic Virus

by Carlos T. Mock, M.D.

Floricanto Press, $[...], pap. ISBN-10: 0915745798, ISBN-13: 978-0915745791

Ken Furtato

Copyright by Echo Magazine - Phoenix

December 23, 2006.

If you like a thriller based on a conspiracy theory with global ramifications, put Carlos T. Mock's Mosaic Virus on your shopping list. Mock finds an ingenious way to connect the dots between real historical events and characters in a way that history (perhaps) never intended, coming up with a story both scary and plausible.

It's the early 1980s and priests in New York State are dying at an alarming rate, of a mysterious illness that kills quickly, yet baffles the medical community. The Vatican dispatches an investigator, "Father Doctor Javier Barraza the Jesuit" to determine if someone is killing priests and if there's a conspiracy afoot against the Church.

Two highly positioned Cardinals have competing agendas: one wants to learn the truth and one wants to hide it in order to protect the Church. Add a deadly FBI agent, Lillian Davis-Lodge -- a female James Bond who is poised to become the next FBI Director and who had an adolescent romance with Barraza. The Vatican invites her assistance, but the FBI has its own agenda in preventing Barraza from accomplishing his mission.

As for those dots, they begin with Pope Pius XII, the Nazi regime, and a young Jew being protected from the Nazis by one of the Cardinals. That youth will one day become New York's Cardinal Spellman, whose sexual dalliances with under-aged boys were the tip of the iceberg of the Church's pedophile-priest scandals. Popes Pius XII and John Paul I figure prominently in the plot, as do the Church's sex scandals, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, genocide, and even Gaėtan Dugas, once dubbed "patient zero" in the AIDS pandemic.

Mosaic Virus also hints at the shattering, sometimes crushing mystery and incomprehensibility of faith.

The Roman Catholic Church is a sacred cow that is always worthy of another skewer, and Mock delivers a potent one. In a world of wealth, power, secrecy and behind-the-scenes manipulation of global events, there's still no good-old-boys club like the Catholic Church.

Carlos Mock is a Chicago-based physician whose writing covers a broad spectrum of genres and topics. To learn more about him, visit his Web site at [...]