The Last Cato [Paperback]

3.5 STARS. Of all the many offshoots and permutations of Dan Browns "The DaVinci Code," ("The Secret Supper," "The Last Templar," "The Rule of Four," etc., etc.), Matilde Asensi's "The Last Cato" is the most interesting. To give the author credit, she did publish this mystery adventure novel, chock full of fascinating early Christian history and contemporary Vatican politics, in Spanish almost two years before Mr. Brown's mega-seller hit the markets. However, "The Last Cato" leaves much to be desired. Whether one agrees with Brown's premise or not, "The DaVinci Code" is truly unputdownable. The pacing is fast and furious, the writing is intelligent, the plot and action varied. It is certainly not a boring book! While I really enjoyed the historical information in "The Last Cato," the writing is frequently ponderous and the storyline quite contrived and repetitious. There is also a romantic element that I could really have done without...way too calculated to be convincing.

Dr. Ottavia Salina, a brilliant and noted paleographer is a nun, a member of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She holds a doctorate in paleography and art history along with numerous other academic titles and is the Director of the Vatican's Classified Archives. So she possesses quite a pedigree and is a spunky lady to boot. The powers that be in the Vatican, including the Pope, order Sister Ottavia to investigate a series of bizarre crimes and the details surrounding the episode(s).

A small rented Cessna had crashed into Mt. Helmos, on the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. Among the dead is an Ethiopian passenger, Abi-Ruj Iyasus. The man's body is covered with tattoos, or scarifications, which include Greek letters, crosses and other symbols. Mr. Iyasus was apparently involved in the theft of priceless, sacred relics, pieces of the True Cross, and Dr. Salina is ordered to analyze and decipher the symbols found on his corpse. She is assigned to help solve the mystery of the theft and to recover the stolen relics. Assisting her is Captain Kaspar Glauser-Roist, a seemingly sinister type who is a member of the Swiss Guard and allegedly the Vatican's "black hand." He is also a hunk. Another expert involved in the investigation is Professor Farag Boswell, an atheist with a Coptic Christian background from the ancient city of Alexandria. He is the grandson of the man who discovered the Byzantine City of Oxirrinco, and an archeologist in his own right with academic credentials as noteworthy as the Sister's. Although eccentric, which makes for a better read, he is another a hottie. (All this sexiness...and in a book about religion too!!!)

Yes...a secret society is involved in the storyline - this one called The Staurofilakes, (not the Opus Dei this time around), which is headed by a "Cato." The trio of amateur sleuths discover that the key to finding the whereabouts of the Staurofilakes, the True Cross, or at least splinters of it, and to achieve "earthly paradise," lies within the text of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy." The tests they must pass in order to move forward in their search is kind of like a board game, and like many board games the process becomes repetitious.

As I wrote above, the historical aspect of the novel is interesting. Character development is nil, but this is a plot driven historical mystery. I do wish writers would become inspired by another topic! This one is getting stale.

JANA

I wish I could read Spanish well enough to be able to read this book in the original, because it's a cracking story. Unfortunately, Ms Pamela Carmell, who is apparently responsible for the translation into English, has, in my view, ruined it.
The language is clumsy, doesn't flow, and contains phrases that appear simply to have been translated word for word from the original, without trying to find an appropriate English idiom - "my tired vertebrae cracked like trampled glass"...???
Such a shame, because this spoiled the book for me. But maybe the Spanish original is just as badly written!

What is with the modern obsession with Dante? There have already been several rather awful works based on Dante's Inferno, and this adds to that list. It's neither a proper historical thriller nor a very good crime novel. There are elements of fantasy that are a complete let-down. There are improbable protagonists who speak particularly improbably. Either the translation is somewhat lacking or the author's got a tin-ear for conversation. Characters don't so much speak as perorate. There's a nun working in the Vatican archives and there's a Swiss Guard and a Coptic polyglot archaeologist, and the three of them are tasked with the investigation into a dead body found decorated with strange symbols and crosses. The Vatican high command (clearly riven by some factionalism) is scared by the rapid progress the nun makes and takes her off the case, only to reassign her when they find that precious relics and crosses (related to the prior investigation) are disappearing from various churches around the world. Some tenuous connection then derives to Dante's Purgatory, and the three are forced to start decoding instructions hidden in the book to find an earthly paradise, where, they suspect, the criminals came from. En route, the nun abandons her faith, and shacks up with the archaeologist. The Swiss Guard remains manly and somewhat of a pointless spoke in their wheel. Other reviewers have praised this book for the fact that it's a romantic quest for paradise with emotional sophistication (my words) rather than an investigation of baddies. But even as a picaresque, it is rather sad.