The Seville Communion

This was the first book by Arturo Perez-Reverte that I read. I've read several more since then, but this is still the best one. I believe this translation is better than the translation for the others. Perez-Reverte writes in Spanish. *The Seville Communion* is part Vatican-conspiracy novel and part espionage novel. Father Lorenzo Quart works for the IEA, the Institute of External Affairs, which is the Vatican's CIA. When the Vatican's computers are hacked and the Pope receives a message saying that a church in Seville, Spain, is killing people, Quart is dispatched to discover the truth. He meets a beautiful woman, Macarena, who is trying to save the church from closing, and his conscience is tried. This is a beautifully wrought story about the temptations of being a celibate priest and the intrigues of politics and the Church. The plot and characters are fantastic. As I mentioned above, Sonia Soto, who translated it from Spanish, did a remarkable job with the prose. TK Kenyon Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

Unos amigos me regalaron la 17ª edición de esta novela hace un año. Aunque de Pérez-Reverte sólo he leído La Tabla de Flandes, me parece que éste tiene que ser uno de sus mejores libros. Después de leerlo, me es evidente la razón por la que es un autor tan popular. El punto fuerte de Pérez-Reverte es el detalle con el que define a sus personajes. Es fácil llegar a conocerlos, se hacen de carne y hueso, y en consecuencia el lector desarrolla una empatía con ellos, incluso con los malos de la historia. Esta novela, además, tiene la ventaja de poseer un personaje central que se hace inmediatamente de querer. Es extraño, ya que el Padre Quart no es entrañable, pero sus circunstancias, pasadas y actuales, ponen su papel en perspectiva favorable. Hablando de caracteres realistas, el que más dificultad tuve en aceptar es Vísperas. Todo es posible en la Viña del Señor, pero no sé, no sé...Una cosa que no aguanto en una novela es que el autor te lo ponga a tiro hecho. Hay veces que es tan obvio lo que va a ocurrir, o lo que de verdad ha pasado, que la trama pierde interés, y una se pregunta si el autor no podría haberle dedicado más tiempo o más neuronas a su escritura. En el caso de esta obra, hay cosas que sí adiviné, pero con algo de trabajo. Eso es exactamente lo que busco en un libro, algo que me haga poner el cerebro en movimiento. Este libro es de los mejores que he leído en el año 2000.

This man is amazing! His novels arrive in the worlds of art, chess, french lit, and now seville and the vatican as though their author had lived in them effortlessly for lifetimes. A true renaissance writer, and there are not many of these around today.

The Seville Communion was my first Perez-Reverte read and I was completely consumed. The plots were very intricate and the characters indepth and colorful. I must admit that the ending was a surprise! I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys great literature and a good mystery which takes place in a beautiful, historic city. Perez-Reverte's descriptions of Seville are fantastic!

The range of opinions in the reviews of Pérez-Reverte's The Seville Communion is wide and interesting.The author stands the Church's high bureaucratic inertia and high monetary wants against the wants and needs of a small number of Sevillans. The characters, while rich enough for the job at hand, are more lightly drawn than P-R's other works (such as The Club Dumas). Maybe some of the divergence of reviewer opinion can be traced to this.I found more than the "beach read for intellectuals" label had lead me to expect. For example, though seen as simplistic or evil by some, comic relief is by a tragicomic trio of inepts whose values are strong but a bit too conveniently adaptive; their ethos is found lacking but maybe no more than the Church's. Another: You will probably not forget Lorenzo Quart (or, oddly, Father Priamo Ferro) for a long time.This book is not pretentious. P-R is not and, at least here, doesn't even try to be Eco. The only rose here is an attractive flower. Of the nearly 30 reviews I read before buying the book most, despite the variability, recommend reading the book. I would add my voice to theirs.