The Pope's Guest

Ilya is the uncouth, uneducated son of ardent Communist workers who becomes a war hero in the Red Army. After the war, however, he experiences a radical conversion to Christianity and becomes a priest, but also eventually a KGB general and Metropolitan of Leningrad. Captivated by the prophecy of Russia’s return to Christianity contained in the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a few simple shepherds in Portugal, Ilya decides he must make overtures to the new pontiff in an effort toward ecumenical collaboration that will facilitate the fulfillment of the prophecy. When he leaves for Rome, his KGB superiors plot to have him assassinated, and the Mafia contacts involved also plot the assassination of John Paul. Dostoevsky meets Le Carré in this rich tapestry of intrigue, betrayal, heroism, and faith. L’hôte du Pape (2004) is Vladimir Volkoff’s next-to-last novel and is, perhaps, his best. It combines Cold War strategizing and hints of the mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit in human affairs. Action takes place primarily in the USSR, Rome, and Portugal, and includes significant flashbacks to World War II. Volkoff takes the skimpy historical details of Pope John Paul I’s mysterious death and the equally mysterious death of a Russian prelate in his arms just days before—and fleshes out the story as only a good espionage novelist could do, but with the added dimension of the role that divine providence could have been playing in these events. There is the stuff of a thriller here, but it is a serious novel written in a richly varied style that includes the brutal, coarse argot of the underworld, the allusiveness of an accomplished artist, and the soaring mysticism of the saints.