by Malachi Martin
Readers with a sweet tooth for fictional global conspiracies will sit still for all sorts of implausible plot strains in the service of a good tale. But this gassy balloon of a novel snaps the tethers of possibility. A host of forces is working to remove Pope John Paul II from the throne of St. Peter. Vatican manipulator Cardinal Cosimo Maestroianni leads a hazy cabal of international bankers, industrialists and politicians that looks to give the church a formidable place in something called the New World Order—a kind of supranational, one-government paradise on earth without spiritual anchor. They want to oust the conservative Pope. Martin, a former Jesuit priest who has returned to the laity, unconscionably lumps together Satanists, homosexuals, Freemasons and the United Nations as enemies of religion in general and the Vatican in particular. Gay and devil-worshipping bishops and priests, the reader is asked to believe, are in cahoots. Windswept tries to give fictional voice to the dangers of this fanciful doomsday scenario, but mostly it—and Martin—are on a fool's errand. (Doubleday, $24.95)
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