In both of his careers -- as an art restorer and as one of the top operatives of Israel's secret service -- Gabriel Allon has frequently crossed paths with the highest levels of Vatican leadership, even winning the friendship of Pope Paul VII and his private secretary, Archbishop Luigi Donati. So when the elderly pope finally passes, Gabriel isn't surprised that Donati contacts him. He is quite surprised, however, when his friend wants him to probe the circumstances of His Holiness' passing, because there are a number of things about the death that raise questions. The presence of a secret letter to Gabriel from the pope only adds to the mystery, but soon enough shadowy players in Vatican politics begin to make their moves. Are they linked to radical nationalist movements in several European countries that aim to place a sympathetic candidate on the throne of Peter? And what long-hidden ancient document had the pope found in the most secret Vatican archives, and why did he want Gabriel to have it? Not everyone wants those questions answered, and the silencers seem ready to move with deadly effect.
In remarks on the 19th Gabriel Allon book, The New Girl, I suggested it was a low point of the series and I eagerly awaited the usually reliable Daniel Silva's follow-up. Had I known that it would be a Dan Brown novel, I would probably have been less eager.
Of course, The Order is head and shoulders above anything Brown's ever published. Silva's characters have depth, he writes better and even his "secret that will shake the foundations of the church" is more plausible. Instead of a secret marriage of Jesus that produces a family tree that coincidentally results in the attractive young woman who's romping around Europe with a middle-aged professor, Silva imagines a written report by Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Tiberias, defending his work as the Governor of Judea. In it, contrary to the assertion of the four canonical gospels, Pilate takes sole responsibility for the death of Jesus. The choice to hide this document and stand on the four gospels of the New Testament, The Order asserts, is the major reason behind the long history of European anti-Semitism and hatred of the Jewish people.
Like Brown, Silva leans on a few selected New Testament scholars to support his claim. They're more mainstream and less outlandish than Brown's sources, but they still seem rather carefully selected to support the idea Silva needs in order to fuel his narrative.
Well, no one reads spy thrillers to learn church history and Christology, so it ordinarily shouldn't matter. Unfortunately, The Order bogs down time and time again so Donati or another church scholar can exposit the necessary church history to let Gabriel himself offer lectures about the horrible impact of the early church's decision to suppress Pilate's report and lay on Jews the guilt for Jesus' execution. The villainous cabal that wants to suppress the Pilate document and put its own man in the papacy is moved by a desire to return the church to a place of power over national governments and by a hatred of immigrants. The national leaders involved are barely-altered versions of actual nationalist movements in European politics today. Silva has Gabriel theorize about how poorly one of those nationalist leaders would respond to a potential pandemic that, gee whillikers, sounds a lot like the COVID-19 crisis actually going on in the world today.
A writer of Silva's caliber could easily be given absolution for reliance on a narrow, slanted theology and the tired trope of his MacGuffin being yet another Suppressed Secret Document That, if Revealed, Would Rock the Foundations of Christianity. But those problems, combined with a sloppy, stop-and-go narrative, unusually lifeless villains and a rather unsurprising fizzle of an ending, make a reader want to see some pretty significant acts of contrition before granting it this time.
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