This is the story of Kiril Lakota, a cardinal who reluctantly steps out from behind the Iron Curtain to lead the Catholic Church and to grapple with the many issues facing the contemporary world. The pope is dead, and the corridors of the Vatican hum with intrigue as cardinals gather to elect his successor. The result is a surprise: the new pope is the youngest of them all - a bearded Ukrainian. The Shoes of the Fisherman is the moving story of Kiril I, recently released from 17 years in Siberian labour camps and haunted by his past.

As a young and outspoken priest, Luca Rossini was brutally tortured in an Argentine military prison, and then nursed back to health by the beautiful Isabel. Exiled to Rome to avoid scandal, Rossini becomes a cardinal and the pope's confidante. He is admired and feared by his colleagues, for he understands the Church and speaks frankly. When the pope becomes gravely ill and a successor must be chosen, Rossini takes a central role. In the midst of the political intrigue that surrounds the selection of a new pope, Isabel arrives in Rome - along with Rossini's daughter.

Paul Desmond admires his close friend George Harlequin for his impeccable European breeding. Head of a prestigious Swiss bank, Harlequin belongs to a vanishing class of gentlemen whose handshake is their bond. Then their gilded world is blown apart. A computer printout identifies the Harlequin et Cie bank as the target of a gigantic takeover. The mastermind is Basil Yanko, a ruthless financial genius whose instruments are fraud, blackmail and terror. As the conflict moves from Zurich to London, New York and Mexico, Harlequin must become a 'villain by necessity'.

Set in pre-World War I Europe, The World Is Made of Glass is a powerful novel of love, sexual obsession, murder and guilt. A cryptic and mysterious case history appears in the autobiography of pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: ‘A lady came to my office. She refused to give her name. What she had to communicate to me was a confession. Some 20 years ago, she had committed a murder.’ Jung’s encounter with the woman had an explosive effect on him and brought him very close to total breakdown.

A young, shy, sickly priest is assigned to his first parish, a sleepy village in Northern France. Though his faith is devout, he finds nothing but indifference and mockery. The children laugh at his teachings, his parishioners are consumed by boredom, rumours are spread about him and he is tormented by stomach pains. Even his attempts to clarify his thoughts in a diary fail to deliver him from worldly concerns. Yet somehow, despite his suffering, he tries to find love for his fellow humans and even a state of grace.

Clambering into the branches of a tree, a young woman flees flaming arrows and massacre. She will need to struggle for survival, scour the wilderness for shelter, and strive for a new family and setting where she can belong. Her unmarked way is costly and hard.

Recipient of the 1966 Tanizaki Prize, it has been called Endo's supreme achievement" and "one of the twentieth century's finest novels". Considered controversial ever since its first publication, it tackles the thorniest religious issues of belief and faith head on. A novel of historical fiction, it is the story of a Jesuit missionary sent to seventeenth century Japan, who endured persecution that followed the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion.

Evelyn Waugh's most celebrated work is a memory drama about the intense entanglement of the narrator, Charles Ryder, with a great Anglo-Catholic family. Written during World War II, the story mourns the passing of the aristocratic world Waugh knew in his youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities; in so doing it also provides a profound study of the conflict between the demands of religion and the desires of the flesh.

In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Out of these events, Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

A panoramic historical novel of the last days of Jesus Christ, The Spear tells the full story of all the participants involved in the dramatic execution, including the seldom remembered Roman soldier who thrust his spear into Christ as he hung on the cross. With a dramatic narration by Richard Ferrone, The Spear is a must listen for anyone interested in the history of the New Testament.

In this remarkable novel, Mauriac brings his extraordinary talent for probing the inmost core of the human character to what is arguably the most exciting theme in the world: the battle for the human soul. In all of literature there can be few more appalling studies of a soul devoured by pride and avarice, corroded by hatred.

Shane’s a damned good salesman, but when a promotion that he spent years earning gets taken away only hours after getting it, he realizes that sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do. But that’s not good enough for Shane. Confronting the person that he believes is responsible for his situation, Shane learns that there’s another, quieter, sales organization that he’s competing against: Perdition Investments. At Perdition Investments the products are whatever you want the most, but the cost is your Soul. Shane has a chance to use his excellent skills in an entirely new way, but at what cost? Can you lose your soul by trading people for theirs? What’s the price for success?

Jose Rizal’s two novels Noli Me Tangere and its sequel El Filibusterismo are beloved classics in The Philippines. Here, they are read with characteristic flair by Academy-Award Nominee Richard E. Grant, who apart from his work in Film and TV, is well-loved by audiobook listeners. It might be fiction, but it is also Philippine history. Rizal travelled to Europe as a student and wrote these books there under difficult circumstances. His friends helped ship them back to Manila where the books were swiftly banned by the Spanish authorities.

Hambledon, Pennsylvania, is still reeling from the sensational murder trial that shattered the peace of the bucolic hamlet less than a year ago. Dr. Jonathan Ferrier was accused of killing his beautiful young wife after she died following a botched abortion. The scion of a powerful old eastern family, Jonathan hired the best attorneys money could buy. When he was acquitted, many believed he had bought his freedom. Now, he has returned home to sell his practice and move on. But haunted by his wife's death, Jonathan still strives to heal the judgmental people of his divided town.

Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world.