After enjoying the author's debut, Chasing Money, I looked forward to reading The Vatican Deal. It was not the fun novel that the debut was. The author switched much of the focus from Marty and Bo to a nebulous mafia/oligarch cast and I found unraveling that a bit of work. Rest assured, I finished the novel and can say that I enjoyed it, but my guess is that author Michael Balter has lots more to offer. Sophomore efforts are often found wanting, but the good authors move on and up. Let's see what Balter does next.
Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The Vatican Deal is an action/adventure/thriller set in Rome, amongst the world of organized crime. At the heart of the story is a formerly floundering U.S. based company that was saved when taking on a business partner who is backed by an influential Russian oligarch with ties to the Russian mob. This company is offered the chance to purchase a foundry in Naples that reproduces the trove of priceless Italian art as well as the license for the reproductions and a coveted Vatican bank account. The oligarch badly wants this deal. They are hand-picked by the Vatican to be the company to purchase this valuable asset. What they later learn is that another Italian business wants it, too, a Napoli based family who runs the Italian mob in Southern Italy. After murder attempts, kidnappings, and outright deaths, the U.S. company gets the foundry, the license, and the bank account, but this transaction results in a mob war between rival Italian families vying for supremacy in the south.

Other subplots fill out the story, and Rome itself plays a big and beautiful role in the telling.

I love Italy—it’s history, art, architecture, language, and food—and my travels there made me eager to read this book. As one would expect given the setting, it is laden with the references and language of Italian culture, but it felt so heavy with it at times. I was torn over it, realizing that, of course, a book like this would have all of those references, but also feeling that these details bogged down the pacing of the story. I didn’t dislike the book, but felt I should mention how dense I found the text.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mission Point Press for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.