The Devil's Advocate

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"A superior novel, intricately worked out at several levels of  human and spiritual quest . . . beautiful and impassioned."—Commonweal
"A reading experience of real emotional intensity."—The New York Times
"A unique cloak-and-dagger drama of the human soul."—Saturday Review
 
The Devil's Advocate, Morris West's best-selling novel, is a deft exploration of the meaning of faith. In an impoverished village in southern Italy, the life and death of Giacamo Nerone has inspired talk of saint­hood. Father Blaise Meredith, a dying English priest, is sent from the Vatican to investigate—and to try to untangle the web of facts, rumors, and outright lies that surround Nerone's life and death. With spiritual frailty as a backdrop, The Devil's Advocate reminds us how the power of goodness ultimately prevails over despair.

Morris West (1916–1999), an Australian novelist, was one of the most popular Catholic writers of the twentieth century. Many of his twenty-nine novels were best sellers, including The Shoes of the Fisherman, Lazarus, and The Clowns of God.