Morris West

The pope is dead and the corridors of the Vatican hum with intrigue as cardinals gather to elect his successor. The result is a surprise: the new pope is the youngest of them all, a bearded Ukrainian. The Shoes of the Fisherman is the moving story of Kiril I, recently released from 17 years in Siberian labor camps and haunted by his past. Not only is he the leader of a fractured Catholic Church, but he also finds he must confront his inquisitor and...

When the daughter of an old Florentine family dies, she leaves a bequest to her lover Max Mather, an American art historian who has been managing the family's rare art collection. Mather is left with two priceless artworks by the great Renaissance master Raphael-without the family's knowledge. As Mather contrives to have the artworks discovered at auction in New York, big-time collectors, dealers and auctioneers are drawn into his game. In trying...

Carl Strassberger's comfortable life in the south of France is shattered when his brother-in-law Larry Lucas, the heir to the family banking business, suddenly vanishes after landing a multimillion-dollar deal. Investigating Larry's disappearance, Carl uncovers a sinister travel company that helps wealthy, unhappy clients disappear to a new life. But Carl fears Larry is dead-or worse. Vanishing Point is a story of flight and pursuit, of financial...

An Italian general is found dead in his apartment. Next to his body is a small card inscribed with a salamander in a bed of flames. Is it suicide or murder? Dante Matucci, a captain in the Italian secret service, begins an investigation that leads him into a maze of political violence and intrigue. He meets the general's former mistress, Lili Anders, and embarks on a dangerous affair with the beautiful one-time spy. Soon he is drawn into the net of...

Paul Desmond admires his close friend George Harlequin for his impeccable European breeding. Head of a prestigious Swiss bank, Harlequin belongs to a vanishing class of gentlemen whose handshake is their bond. Then their gilded world is blown apart. A computer printout identifies the Harlequin et Cie bank as the target of a gigantic takeover. The mastermind is Basil Yanko, a ruthless financial genius whose instruments are fraud, blackmail and terror....

Twenty chests of minted Spanish gold in a sunken galleon-this is the lure that brings historian Renn Lundigan to a tiny island off Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Renn enlists islander Johnny Akimoto to teach him scuba diving, but soon realizes there's a far greater danger in the reef than the sharks. Gambling den owner Manny Mannix has followed him to the island, and now he threatens not only Renn and Johnny, but also the beautiful young scientist...

In a valley deep in the highlands of New Guinea lives a small colony of Europeans. One of them is Kurt Sonderfield, a doctor with a shady past who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. N'Daria is a hauntingly beautiful native girl whom Sonderfield has trained in the art of seduction. Kumo is a young sorcerer who has fallen under Sonderfield's sway. Only two dare oppose Sonderfield: the old French missionary Père Louis, and Gerda, the wife Sonderfield...

Lance Dillon is owner of a new cattle station on the southern fringe of Australia's Arnhem Land. When an Aboriginal hunting party targets Dillon's prize bull for a ritual killing, and then spears Dillon in the shoulder, it's clear they want him off their traditional land. Under the merciless rays of the burning sun, the wounded Dillon flees into the bush, with expert tracker Mundaru in hot pursuit. Dillon's city-born wife Mary and handsome local policeman...

One of the most famous victims of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was the brilliant Dominican monk Giordano Bruno, burnt at the stake for heresy in 1600. Morris West recreates a diary of Bruno's intimate thoughts as he languishes in Rome's worst prison for seven years. Bruno's reflections and frank memories of his life reveal him to be both a fine thinker and a flawed priest-and a man willing to pay the highest price to be true to himself. The...

Son of a Norwegian master-mariner and grandson of Kaloni, the last of the great Polynesian navigators, Gunnar Thorkild is a man consumed by a dream. Convinced that the Polynesians' legendary Island of the Dead is real, he risks his career, his life-and those of his fellow adventurers-to find it. Shipwrecked on the very island they seek, the castaways are forced to leave behind everything they know and rely upon. To survive in this lush tropical paradise,...