The Venerable Bead [Paperback]

Richard Condon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1992

As the story begins...It is the early 1970s, when every American man, woman, and child is fighting the threat of Communist invasion. Leila Aluja, an Iraqi-American lawyer, becomes a film star as part of her job with the government's top counter-espionage unit, in an effort to track down a ring of Sino-Albanian spies operating out of Hollywood's most powerful talent agency. Leila accomplishes her mission, but not before she falls in love with Albanian spymaster Josef Shqitonja, and compromises her organization by allowing him to escape, bringing an end to her budding undercover career. Leila bounces back to become a partner of Washington's largest lobbying firm, representing the National Gun Carriers Association, C.A.N.C.E.R. (Center for American National Cigarette Education and Research), and Barkers Hill Enterprises, investment arm of organized crime. From her law practice, Leila moves onto public relations, and then to the head of the world's largest fast-food conglomerate, all the while separated from her true love, Shqitonja, as he scours Albania for a secret, life-prolonging yogurt formula. Despite the occasional, not to say habitual, affairs, daliances, and marriages, Leila and Shqitonja cling to their love for each other - until the secret of the yogurt finally reunites them. More than just a love story, The Venerable Bead is a saga of love for self, money, unassailable corruption, and power. All just kidding, of course.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The eponymous bead is not an 8th-century Benedictine monk but a ruby given to anagrammatic heroine Leila Aluja by her second husband, the most powerful man in the history of Hollywood. Leila, daughter of an Iraqi-born U.S. congressman with Mafia ties, starts as a 1970s Red-hunter, turns into a movie star, then a Madonna-ish rock star, then a president-advising lobbyist-lawyer, and finally the head of a worldwide fast-food empire. Along the way she marries a Sino-Albanian spymaster; then the Hollywood agent; next a gun-lobby exec who turns serial killer, and last a Columbia University professor of Irish studies (his face is Lincolnesque with just a touch of Meyer Lansky). On this rollicking two-decade tour, Condon (Prizzi's Honor, The Final Addiction) gleefully skewers American hypocrisy, venality, stupidity and vulgarity, paying keen attention to tobacco and gun lobbies and to a GOP president who stood for a kinder and gentler America, providing it carried guns. No pious figure himself, Condon here afflicts the comfortable to hilarious effect, aptly subtitling this romp A Deadly Serious Novel. 50,000first panting; major ad/promo.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (October 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312312776
• ISBN-13: 978-0312312770
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,291,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Satirical, geo-political trash., August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Venerable Bead (Hardcover)

The Venerable Bead is a disappointment from an author of Richard Condon's stature. It is a loosely, disjointed, mishmash of a novel. Its central character, Leila Aluja, is a spy, singer/actress, fast food mogul, and PR whiz whose voracious appetite for sex outweighs her credibility. Potential readers save your money!