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White Smoke is the Andrew M. Greeley novel that takes the Conclave-thriller premise (a Pope has died, the cardinals are gathering to elect a successor, the political stakes within the Church are unusually high) and runs it through Greeley's career-long sociological attention to Catholic institutional politics. The book is more interested in the actual workings of Vatican governance than the form usually allows.
Greeley's strengths are the institutional knowledge and the dialogue. The cardinal characters are individuated with the kind of attention only an insider has access to. The political coalitions are rendered as the actual rolling negotiations they are rather than as cartoonish factionalism.
The thriller machinery is competent rather than gripping. The institutional novel underneath is more interesting.
Three stars. Recommended to readers who like institutional Catholic thriller. Best for Greeley regulars.
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