Book Log 2022 #39: The Confessor by Daniel Silva

So I didn't intend to dip back into the Gabriel Allon series quite so quickly, but I needed a book and figured I could stand to catch up a bit on the series. In this outing, a Holocaust scholar is murdered in his Munich home, and Allon is tasked to find out who did it. In the course of his investigation he learns about a secret society within the Catholic church that acts to defend its reputation and power - both of which were under threat from the scholar's work. When that group sees the current pope as a threat, Allon must act to not only avenge the death of the scholar, but to prevent an assassination that could have worldwide ramifications.

Like the previous book, Silva selects an historical basis for the plot that is worthy of greater public examination. It's fair to say that the Vatican did not cover itself in glory in its response to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. On the other hand, a secret society within the Vatican is a pretty tired trope. Still liked the book, just hope it doesn't indicate the series heading off in a Dan Brown-type direction.

 Book Log 2022 #38: We Don't Know Ourselves by Fintan O'Toole

A combination memoir and social history, O'Toole uses the coincidence of his birth and the passing of legislation to open up the Irish economy being in the same year to use his life experiences as a lens to examine the changes in Irish society. His journey from being a kid in working class Dublin to going to university to becoming a journalist and critic echo Ireland's change from being insular and church-dominated to being one of the most open societies in Europe.

In some instances the book is quite touching, especially as O'Toole shares memories of his parents and growing up in the 1960s. In others, he is searingly critical of the power structures that allowed violence and abuse to run free, from the overt violence of the Troubles to the personal violence of abusive parents, teachers, and priests that went undiscussed and unchecked. 

The book takes its title from an Irish saying, "Sure, we don't know ourselves," which typically refers to things improving to a point where you don't recognize who you are now based on where you were. What O'Toole successfully demonstrates is that there was (and probably still is, in some fashion) a cognitive dissonance in Irish society between the things that are publicly known and things that are collectively privately known but allowed to fester. This book take a fascinating and highly readable step towards synthesis.