City of Secrets Book Reviews

City of Secrets by John Follain Book Summary

A true crime exposé of a 1998 murder-suicide within Vatican City and its subsequent investigation.

On the night of Monday, May 4, 1998, in Vatican territory, the bodies of the commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife, and a young lance corporal were found in the barracks of the picturesque force entrusted with protecting the pope. It was the worst bloodbath to take place in more than a century in the heart of the supreme authority of the world’s one billion Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty-three-year-old Cédric Tornay, had shot the couple, then committed suicide in “a fit of madness” brought on by frustration with the unit's discipline—a conclusion it reaffirmed after a nine-month internal inquiry.

But as John Follain’s hard-hitting exposé shows, the official report was a travesty, a tissue of suppositions, contradictions, and omissions. Based on an exhaustive three-year investigation, City of Secrets reveals how the Vatican, the oldest and most secretive autocracy in the world, staged an elaborate plot to obstruct justice—and hide the scandals it dared not confess.

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