Matilde Asensi The Last Cato

The Last Cato

Matilde Asensi

Rayo, Apr 2006, $24.95

ISBN: 0060828579

Vatican's Classified Archives director Father Ramondino introduces Sister Ottavia Salina, chief of the Restoration and Paleography Laboratory, to the Catholic Church hierarchy who believe they desperately need her services. The leadership including the Pope is upset, but not because an Ethiopian with sacred crosses and a sigma tattooed on his body was killed, but because he was murdered before they could learn more about his international colleagues and clients stealing sacred segments of the Ligna Crucis, the original crucifixion cross. Her assignment is to retrieve the stolen relics. Though she considers herself a poor choice as she solves literary mysteries not criminal cases, she agrees to find the artifacts.

The church leadership assigns the Pope's Swiss Guard Captain Kaspar Glauser-Roist to her team; when they follow a lead to Alexandria they enlist Egyptian archeologist Professor Farag Boswell to assist Dr. Salina on the quest. As they follow leads using clues she uncovers buried in Dante's Divine Comedy, the trio concludes that a clandestine order, The Staurofilakes headed by a Cato, is behind the thefts, but to stop them and retrieve what they stole will require a miracle.

THE CATO is simply Dante meets Da Vinci. The story line is at its exciting best when either the early history of the church or Dante's divine tale is front and center. When the plot diverts to padded sidebars such as a tryst between the four decade celibate nun and one of her teammates, it loses plausibility and hence steam. Much of the cast is underdeveloped except perhaps the superheroine (a Sister Lara Croft), fans of religious thrillers will enjoy Matilde Asensi's tale.

Harriet Klausner