Overdue Debt

 One good thing about being sick is people understand that you can't go out and about.  Good.  I can stay home and read.  Since I've discovered Glenn Cooper and Cal Donovan, I've don't have to look around or wonder what to read next.

Next was The Debt.  Since I love history, Catholic history, conspiracy, thrillers, and intrigue, I loved this book.  Cal Donovan in his research has discovered that the Vatican hasn't paid a centuries old debt.  The interest would do more than choke a cow.  No way could it ever be paid.  But before I go into the arrangements to pay off the debt in a way to satisfy all parties, I have to tell you why I was interested.

It's silly.  Still.  The story begins with the Vatican kidnapping of Jason Sassoon.  The year is 1848.  Europe is in turmoil.  The pope has been routed out of Rome.  Napoleon is threatening.  The cardinals need money to hire soldiers to defend the church - they're desperate.  They can't ask the Rothchild's, again, they have to go to another.  Why would a rival of the Rothchild's, the Sassoon's help?  They would pay to get their son back.  This is the start.  But what caught my attention was the name Sassoon.  That's the name of a hair salon in Boston.  My favorite hairstyle was a Sassoon cut.  

I know.  Silly.  Still.  That's why I was rooting for the Sassoon family to be good people and come to an arrangement to satisfy what happened.  The history is true.  There is and was Rothchild's and Sassoon's.  The conspiracies abound in power families, politics, and life.

Cal Donovan discovers this debt and Pope Celestine wants to pay it back but the church has no money.  No one has that kind of money.  And the Sassoon family is split into the good Sassoon's and the bad Sassoon's.  The good are agreeable.  The bad are scheming money hounds.  Fortunately, the good ones hold the majority vote in the business.

So far, I like the endings in Cooper's Vatican novels.  They're satisfactory.  All the lines come together and are tied up neatly.