The Key

May 28, 2012
The middle volume of Toyne’s Sanctus trilogy (after 2011’s Sanctus) fails to deliver on the promise of the first. In the ancient Turkish city of Ruin, hostility to Catholicism has prompted someone to set off explosives at the Citadel, “the oldest continually inhabited structure on earth and the original center of the Catholic Church,” and the resulting damage has led to the first ever appearance in public of any of the Citadel’s occupants. Speculation runs rampant that the survivors of the bombing possess the real secret of the sacrament, another church-foundation-rattling possibility that, unfortunately for the Vatican, coincides with another, more mundane crisis. Cardinal Secretary of State Clementi has learned that trillions of dollars have disappeared from the church’s coffers and hangs his hope for a solution on the secrets of Ruin. Readers should be prepared for less than engaging protagonists and trite setups (e.g., one character avoids being murdered by pure chance). Agent: Alice Saunders, LAW Agency.

Liv Adamsen and Gabriel Mann race to find the key to a plague at the Citadel, in the ancient city of Ruin. Simon Vance's smoky voice captures the tension and mystery in a thriller featuring a religious conspiracy. His tense narration moves the story along as Mann and Adamsen seek to evade Òthe Ghost,Ó a mercenary at work in the Syrian desert, and restore order to the world. The duo must find the answer in a cuneiform tablet before it's too late. Vance's flawless performance pulls listeners into this mystery as it twists and turns through secret places across the planet. The complex events in this volume have a lot of backstory, so listeners are advised to start with Volume I. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

July 1, 2012
Former British television writer, producer and director Toyne cranks up the drama with the second entry in a conspiracy thriller series. Taking up where the first volume (Sanctus, 2011) left off, New Jersey news reporter Liv Adamsen awakens to find herself hospitalized in the small Turkish town of Ruin. Liv is not alone: Kathryn Mann and a monk from the Citadel are also recovering from injuries sustained when fleeing the mysterious fortress. However, there are forces at hand determined to destroy all three, and that is something Kathryn's son, Gabriel, cannot allow to happen. Gabriel helps Liv escape and find her way back home to the U.S., then begins to look for a way to return to the Citadel, which is now seemingly under assault from nature itself. Blighted trees and a dying garden have spread their disease to the humans who occupy the Catholic fortress, and no one knows how to stop what appears to be an impending worldwide catastrophe. As the Vatican's moneyman, Cardinal Secretary Clementi, plots to eliminate Liv and her co-conspirators, Gabriel forges an alliance to help fend off what appears to be the realization of the End of Days. As he battles to save Liv from a terrible fate, Gabriel finds that one of the most important events of his life was a lie and that allies exist in places he would never have suspected. Toyne's first novel, Sanctus, set up the story of the Citadel and the mysterious thing it guards. Well-written, fast-paced and delivered with an admirable economy of words, this book offers an edge-of-the-seat story filled with action and adventure, as well as a puzzle that the main characters must somehow put together before the world simply disappears. If the book has a flaw, it's that it doesn't stand alone, and readers who have not progressed from the first book to the second will spend the first half trying to figure out what's happening. Reading the initial book in the series first makes this taut thriller much more satisfying.

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Starred review from June 1, 2012
If you like your secrets deeply hidden and your action breakneck, then Toyne's sophomore thriller is just the ticket. The story picks up where Sanctus (2011) left off, with the city of Ruin, at the foot of the mountain that hides the Citadel, in, well, ruinsor at least on its way there. A series of explosions thought to be the work of terrorists have gone off inside the Citadel, wreaking havoc on the Sancti (a covert group of monks whose sole duty is to protect church secrets). When an apparent plague works its way through the Sancti, church leaders panic, frightened that all their clandestine activities will be revealed. The Ghost, an evil mercenary whose work could be for the devil or for the church (sometime it's not so clear), aims to make the most of the chaos while remaining under the radar. There are also people who know thingsincluding Liv, a young American woman who actually entered the Citadel itself but, curiously, remembers nothingwho could potentially bring everything crashing down. As in his debut, Toyne delivers a gripping, intricate story of religious and political intrigue that's sweeping yet somehow intimate and very personal. Wow. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Former British television executive Toyne hit big with his debut novel (rights sold in 60 countries). This follow-up will keep the ball rolling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)