Paul Adam - Unholy Trinity

Andy Chapman, Rome correspondent for a London daily, is intrigued by the brutal murder of a left-wing priest. Turning to investigating magistrate, Elena Fiorini, he discovers she is under pressure not to pry too deeply into the killing. Their investigations lead them into the Vatican's archives.

Comment: I'm sure I'm not the only one and I'm sure many people have had books in their TBR lists for a long time and I'm also pretty sure I have other books in mine for a longer period of time, but this book has been waiting in one of my shelves for over ten years. Yep, ten years. I got it in 2003 in a book sale and it has been left alone all this time. Why? Because there was a time I wasn't in the mood for some books, but two years ago, more or less I started to read more genres again and I decided enough is enough and this poor thing finally got its time.

This story features Andy Chapman, he's a journalist and is investigating the death of a left wing priest in Rome. One day his friend is killed in front of him and he knows the same people behind the priest's death are the assassins here.
Elena is a state prosecutor and she's in charge of looking into the priest's death. After a rocky first meeting, Andy and Elena join forces to find out the truth and what secret is so important people are even killing others to keep it.

Before I got interested in paranormals, I used to read a lot of contemporary romances. Some of my favorites would be stories where the hero and heroine would meet and fight something together or look for something together. I'd love to see them move along in the story while falling in love or being very attracted until they realized it was love. I'd look for books with blurbs where I could "see" the potential of the story.
Then I got interested in some author in particular, then another and so on and my blurb-book hunt decreased. Still, some books I own I got because of that.
This is one of those, in the blurb I got the notion the protagonists would have a relationship and I know I got the book because of that possibility. Now that I have read the book, the romance wasn't such a big deal after all. It was actually pretty lame. Why? Because they didn't like each other and although I like these kind of romances, in this case it wasn't so, for the second time they met they scheduled a dinner and got intimate that same night. A bit too fast, I think. Then they start seeing each other and we get to understand they are starting to have feelings for each other and then, one time the guy's sort of previous girlfriend - who was a married woman - which bothered me - shows up and he has sex with her for old time's sake. ?? Seriously...

Considering the romantic part of the book was a let down, that leaves the mystery. I think it was very interesting, it's about spoils from the Second Wold War and Mussolini's dictatorship and the connection to the Church and the Vatican and it's full of historical notes and references. It's clear the author has done a lot of research, even with the input of apparent random facts from a lot of subjects, which makes the plot more solid. But the way he writes it's not the most exciting and although I was very interested in knowing what was going to happen next, the writing didn't make me that eager. Thankfully, he didn't take long to move the story forward so I could read it relatively well.

In the end, I was glad to have finally got it over with, I wasn't dazzled at all, but in a way it was worth the waiting because it had a mysterious enough plot to keep me interested.
I'm not sure I want to read another one though..although some of the blurbs do seem good. Ah the curse of all readers...interesting blurbs that try to catch out eye...