The Lives of Felix V is compelling, powerful, and disturbingly prophetic, with 2 of 3 astounding revelations already having come true, and the third-- slowly evolving. From the horrors of the Second World War through the political and religious conspiracies of the postwar period, Joseph Orbi's novel carefully weaves together fiction with little known, and troubling historical fact in a story of intrigue, manipulation, and murder at the highest echelons of the Vatican. The novel chronicles the lives of two men: Felix Ronnoco, an orphan who grows up under the tutelage of a powerful member of the Vatican elite, and young Damir Pavelic', son of Ante Pavelic', the forgotten f hrer of World War II. Linking the two is a priest, who adopts Ronnoco and helps Ante Pavelic' and his family escape from Europe at the end of the war. The same man who, thirty-one years later, becomes the first non-Italian pope in 500 years, a pope with a daring and dangerous political vision. The Lives of Felix V is that rare event in literature that combines a sweeping and tightly-woven plot with vivid characters, suspense, biting wit, irreverence, tragedy, and romance, soaring to a climax of unprecedented boldness. It is more than a novel. It is prophecy.
