Schism

Deveroux's back! R Section operative Deveroux, code name November returns in the second installment of Bill Granger's often overlooked spy series. After a Catholic priest wanders out of the jungles of Thailand after having disappeared 20 years earlier and into the custody of the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, a power strugglw between the CIA, the Soviets, and the Vatican Intelligence network ensues to silence Father Leo Tunney.Years earlier Tunney was working in Souyheast Asia on behalf of the CIA. Tunney knows secrets that would be damaging to the previously mentioned parties. Enter Deveroux, sent to find out what a reporter named Rita Macklin knows about the resurfaced Father Tunney after she had managed to take a photo of him while in custody of CIA. Macklin is roughed up by agency goons and warned off of the story. Deveroux, pretending to be a vacationing reporter, wins the trust of Macklin in Florida where Father Tunney has taken up residence in a local diocese. It turns out that Tunney is writing a tell-all journal about his time in the war ravaged jungle and all factions will stop at nothing to stop him. A woman claims Tunney miraculously heals her while reciting the forbidden Latin Mass which leads to a whirlwind of media attention, causing panic among the interested parties who would have the most to lose if Tunney's journal were to see the light of day.After meeting up once again with KGB nemesis Denisov, Deveroux is caught in the middle of a race to possess the journal. The story moves toward a very satisfying conclusion with all the various loose ends tied up and explained. The relationship between the hardened and jaded Deveroux and the idealistic reporter Macklin is realistically drawn in a world where there is never only black and white, but varying shades of grey. This second in the long running November man line is thrilling and gritty in its portrayel of the shadowy world that Deveroux inhabits.