The Religious Thriller: Now with Special Sauce

By Kathryn 

thirdsecret.jpgI’ve been up all night, reading The Historian, one of the less bizarre choices in Janet Maslin’s round-up of big summer books. Also mentioned in Maslin’s motley selection (comprised of one too many whipping posts; iCon Steve Jobs, anyone?) is Steve Berry’s The Third Secret, another book in the mold of The Da Vinci Code. Maslin (presumably reading off a teleprompter written by the book’s publicist) calls The Third Secret a “lurid, churning thriller that centers on the election of a new pope,” also noting that Berry “got lucky by imagining a German-born pontiff in his late 70’s.” More importantly, though: The Third Secret‘s clergymen get lucky, too. Or, to quote Maslin, “Mr. Berry raises this genre’s stakes by providing, among other things, a hot-blooded heroine who helps clergymen break their vows.” When it comes to genres’ “stakes,” though, GC prefers the killing kind.