27. The Fifth Gospel - Ian Caldwell

It looks like The Rule of Four may be some sort of prequel, but I'm not sure...
listened to on Audible
2015
431 pgs.- I'm guessing I read over 200 of them, because I listened for over 7 hours
Adult mystery
Abandoned 5/15/16
Goodreads rating  3.69
My rating:  2/I tried....
Setting: Vatican City, Rome, Italy

First line/s:  "My son is too young to understand forgiveness."

My comments:   I truly enjoy forays into the history of biblical times - but this was so rooted in the Catholic church, the differences between orthodox Greek and Roman Catholic, and believing in the bible, that the plodding manner in which this book moved was just too slow for me to read all the way through. I did read over half the book, but I couldn't get enamored with any of the characters enough to find out more about the history OR who the murderer was.  So I made the decision to go on to one of the thousands of other books waiting for me to read (the same thing happened to me in Rule of Four, I should have paid attention to that, but am forever optimistic....)

Goodreads synopsis:  A lost gospel, a relic, and a dying pope's final wish send two brothers - both Vatican priests - on a quest to untangle Christianity's biggest mystery (the shroud of Turan)

14. The Cut - George Pelecanos

Spero Lucas #1
audio read by Dion Graham - really nicely!
2011, Hachette Audio
6 unabridged discs, 7 hrs. 32 minutes
TPPL
292 pages
Rating:  4.5 ( I really, really liked the book, and especially the protagonist)

Setting:  Washington, DC (with lots of description and place references)
OSS:  Spero Lucas is hired by a local marijuana kingpin to locate some stolen pot shipments.

Spero Lucas is a very likable, interesting, real character.  At 29 years old he has returned home from his stint in the Marines in the Middle East to his hometown of Washington DC.  He has been raised in the Greek Orthodox tradition and is still  quite spiritual.  He comes from a mixed and blended family, three of the four siblings had been adopted.  He visits his father in the cemetery frequently, and is very close to his school-teacher older brother.

Spero has discovered that he's good at finding things.  He takes photos, draws street plans, makes notes in his black moleskin notebook.  He thinks outside the box.  He makes mistakes --- but learns from them.  He has Marine buddies that hang out with him at the local American legion, and he has them help him out.  He's an avid bicycler and kayaker, we see a lot of DC from this perspective.  He drinks, he loves women, good food, and his city.  He is thoughtful and perspective.  I really like his character, and I like his humanity.

Pelecanos is great with character creation throughout the book.  You get to know the bad guys, the peripheral characters and all their flaws. I'm really looking forward to the second book in this series.