I'm surprised to see this book rated so highly. I've read several Robert Harris books and have loved them, so expected Conclave to be excellent, but I was quite disappointed.

As usual Harris conjurs up a cast of thousands, but I can forgive him that as in many situations they add tremendous colour or are historically necessary (eg in An Offer and a Spy, the story of the Dreyfus affair). I usually tune out the unnecessary characters no problem, but in this book I found myself trying to keep track of the different cardinals with similar names but differing idealogies and it kept intruding.

The worst aspect for me of this book was the growing uncertainty that anything was really going to happen. There's infighting, a scandal and a bit of politics all the way through and I really began to wonder if that was it, and for me it wasn't enough to maintain my interest. When things began to hot up with Benitez I picked up the clues about his real identity so in the end it was an anticlimax.

Perhaps I'm missing the point of this book and in fact it's not to do with plot, suspense or sending up the church. Perhaps it's really about Lomeli, the very likeable protagonist who has to make difficult decisions and who continually examines his own conscience. He was an effective character, straight out of the Robert Harris school of excellent characterisation, and the saving grace of this book for me.

If you're interested in the process of electing a pope this is a worthy read, if repetitive (but I get the point of that, both literally and as a metaphor), but if you're new to Robert Harris read Pompeii first. It's Harris at his tremendous best.