BLOOD OF THE LAMB by Sam Cabot

© by Gerald So | geraldso.blogspot.com | 11:15 A.M.

I bought this book Monday at my local Barnes & Noble to prepare for a Skype chat I'm recording with S.J. Rozan October 1. S.J., whose Lydia Chin and Bill Smith P.I. series I've enjoyed, is half of Sam Cabot, the other half being John Cabot University professor Carlos Dews. Blood of the Lamb is the first book in their supernatural series featuring Jesuit historian Fr. Thomas Kelly and art historian Livia Pietro.

Kelly's mentor, newly appointed Vatican archivist, summons him to Rome and puts him on the trail of the Concordat, a 600-year-old document of agreement between the Church and a mysterious other group. Stolen by a poet in 1849, the Concordat would prove calamitous if made public. Pietro, representing the other group, the Noantri, disparagingly known as vampires, joins Kelly's effort to keep the Concordat out of the wrong hands.

To better elicit his cooperation, Pietro reveals her nature to Kelly, and as he gets over that, he begins to see she and her kind are not the demons he was led to believe. The novel presents vampires as well-rounded characters. Like mortals, they are morally complex. Kelly and Pietro's interplay provides plausible perspective on the shocking secrets they uncover.