Vatican Mystery Fiction

Iron-fisted Pope Leo XIV emerges from open-heart surgery with the chilling realisation that his reforms have devastated the Church. As he struggles to overcome the policies he himself put in place, he must battle enemies from within the Vatican, as well as Islamic terrorists determined to assassinate him. Amid political intrigue and counterespionage, his brilliant Surgeon, Salviati, becomes a target, too, along with Salviati’s beautiful mistress, Tove, and her fragile daughter, as the plot builds to a dramatic climax.

This captivating narrative follows Father Michael Dominic, the esteemed Prefect of the Vatican’s Secret Archives, as he uncovers a remarkable artifact lost to time—Leonardo da Vinci’s most ingenious invention, the Celestial Guardian. Initially heralded as a divine instrument capable of forecasting a catastrophic asteroid bound for Earth, Father Dominic's discovery soon unravels a more ominous reality: the Guardian’s ability to not just predict, but alter celestial events.

In the wilds of Mongolia, a research satellite has crashed, triggering an explosive search for its valuable cargo: a code-black physics project connected to the study of dark energy...and a shocking image of the eastern seaboard of the United States in utter ruin. At the Vatican, a package arrives containing two strange artifacts: a skull scrawled with ancient Aramaic and a tome bound in human skin. DNA evidence reveals that both came from the same body: the long-dead Mongol king Genghis Khan.

Amid the grandeur of the Vatican, the bones of Saint Peter—the Church’s most sacred relics—hold secrets that could reshape its history. Father Michael Dominic, Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, uncovers a mysterious, nearly forgotten inscription linking Linus, Saint Peter’s first successor, to foundational decisions that shaped the early Church. What begins as a scholarly exploration of Linus’s legacy quickly turns into an urgent quest to protect the truth.

Father Michael Dominic, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome, is entrusted with the mission of transporting the original 17th century trial documents of Galileo to Loyola Law School in Chicago. The stage is set for a modern historical mock trial of Galileo’s original heresy charges, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the legendary event.

In Munich, writer Benjamin Stern enters his flat to find a man leafing through his research. When Stern confronts him, the man shoots him, murmurs a few words in Latin, gathers the papers and leaves. In Venice, art restorer and Israeli agent Gabriel Allon reads a message saying that Stern is dead; can he leave immediately? At the Vatican, a priest named Pietro paces in the garden, pondering the discoveries he has made, the enemies he will make, and the journey he must undertake. Silva weaves these three threads into a multilayered mystery.

Detective Gabriel Allon returns in Daniel Silva's stunning thriller of ancient and modern betrayal, long-buried secrets and unthinkable deeds that takes the listener from Munich to Venice to the Vatican.

When a church combusts in rural Appalachia, the bizarre trail of carnage suggests diabolical forces are at work. Charged with explaining the inexplicable, the FBI's Dr. Ailes and Agent Knoll once again turn to the ace up their sleeve: Agent Jessica Blackwood, a former prodigy from a family dynasty of illusionists. After playing a pivotal role in the capture of the Warlock, a seemingly supernatural serial killer, Jessica can no longer ignore the world - and the skills - she left behind.

In the shadowed depths of the Vatican’s Secret Archives, archaeologist Marcus Russo, Father Michael Dominic, and investigative journalist Hana Sinclair uncover a chilling artifact—a centuries-old music box intricately crafted and bound with symbols of forgotten rites of alchemy. What begins as an academic curiosity quickly turns into a dire warning, as whispers of its sinister origins surface. The box, linked to an enigmatic 18th-century composer, Vincenzo Malvagio, holds within it a melody unlike any other—a composition rumored to have the power to summon forces beyond human comprehension.

In her long career as America's most beloved suspense writer, Mary Higgins Clark's The Lost Years is her most astonishing and dramatic work to date. At its center is a discovery that, if authenticated, may be the most revered document in human history - the holiest of the holy - and certainly the most coveted and valuable object in the world.

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. The war's outcome is far from certain. An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, the world's smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. Here Hugh brings together an unlikely band of friends to hide the vulnerable under the noses of the enemy. But Hauptmann's net begins closing in on the Escape Line and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical.

When the papal apartments are burgled in 1901, Sherlock Holmes is summoned to Rome by Pope Leo XII. After learning from the pontiff that several priceless cameos that could prove compromising to the church, and perhaps determine the future of the newly unified Italy, have been stolen, Holmes is asked to recover them. In a parallel story, Michelangelo, the toast of Rome in 1501 after the unveiling of his Pieta, is commissioned by Pope Alexander VI, the last of the Borgia pontiffs, with creating the cameos that will bedevil Holmes and the papacy four centuries later.

Kimball Hayden is the commander of an elite commando group known as the Vatican Knights, a black-op force that works for the Church to protect its sovereignty, its interests, and the welfare of its citizenry. But Kimball is being stalked by someone from the past, a soldier who is stronger, faster, and far more brutal - an assassin so deadly not even the Vatican Knights can stop him.

In the days following the Pope's death, a cardinal is found brutally murdered in a chapel in Rome, his eyes gouged and his hands cut off. Called in for the grisly case, police inspector Paola Dicanti learns that another cardinal was recently found dead; he had also been tortured.

Growing up with a sheltering mother and a belligerent father, Kimball Hayden's young life goes from one of innocence to the depths of chaos. When a vicious syndicate of murderers and extortionists begin to run the streets, Kimball soon becomes the focal point of their attention. His family is placed within the crosshairs, friends go missing or are found dead, all messages from the Gangster Prince. But when Kimball's world shatters and he grieves a great loss, the sleeping giant within him awakens.

While traveling across the United States during the Papal Symposium, the papal plane, Shepherd One, is commandeered by a terrorist cell calling itself the Muslim Revolutionary Front. On board: a nuclear payload with half the yield that destroyed Hiroshima. Their demand to the US government: assassinate the five leading principals of Mossad.

Fresh from almost getting killed helping Sebastian McCabe solve The 1895 Murder, Jeff Cody and Lynda Teal are enjoying their honeymoon alone in Rome when mystery and murder intrude. The disappearance of a young American’s Roman boyfriend seems like a familiar tale of a summer romance leading to heartbreak . . . until a cameo necklace purchased at the Vatican is stolen right off of Lynda’s neck.

Thirty years ago, the world was in the exploratory stages of creating a technology capable of artificial intelligence. Thirty years later, that technology has been perfected. In a lab somewhere in a remote mountain region in Iran, nanoparticles, or micro-bots, have been created to be self-sustaining and self-reproducing, each day evolving and learning from experience. They have been programmed to be the ultimate predator, devouring everything in their path and leaving nothing behind.

While vacationing in Paris, Shari Cohen's children are kidnapped by Jadran Božanović, a Croatian kingpin who runs a human-trafficking cartel and is as deadly as the knife he wields. Few dare to challenge him. And even fewer dare to defy him. With time running out and her resources running thin, Shari calls upon the aid of Kimball Hayden and his team Vatican Knights - an elite group of commandos dedicated to protect the sovereignty, interests, and citizenry of the Church - and are once again reunited.

In a Galveston, Texas lab, a lethal strain has been stolen by a terrorist faction. In New Mexico, the population of a small town is completely wiped out. In Las Vegas, a vicious underground clan called the Community surfaces at night to prey on the weak. In Paris, two old foes of Kimball Hayden reunite as a kill team to hunt him down. Now considered dead by the Vatican, Kimball Hayden is leading a secretive life on the streets of Las Vegas. But when a parish comes under the threat of a vicious mob, he finds himself thrown back into a world of violence.