This is the first book in the Joe Mason series and follows Mason as he is tasked with being a body guard for a professor and his daughter. They plan to spend a few days in the vaults of the Vatican, studying the dusty tomes. For an ex-MI5 operative like Mason, the job sounds dull and below his skill set. However, soon Mason and his clients find themselves caught in the crossfire of a clandestine group stealing the Vatican's most treasured possession - a book of secrets. Now, Mason and the rag-tag crew he assembles are on a race across countries to find this group before they can reveal the book's secrets and, potentially, bring down Christianity as we know it.
On NetGalley, this was described as Dan Brown meets Jack Reacher and I could 100% see that is what Leadbeater was going for. Unfortunately, I think the combination ended up not quite hitting what I was looking for on either end (but this would vary reader to reader). With this being the first book in a series, there was a good amount of character set up and introduction. The way the book ends, it sounds like we will follow multiple of these characters into the next book in the series, not only Mason. I did read an ARC so maybe some things have changed for the final version, but I found the beginning really rough and a bit hard to get through but by the last 1/3 of the book, I was invested and I think I would read on in the series in the future.
The most successful part, for me, was by far the action sequences. Leadbeater is phenomenal at writing clear and thrilling chase sequences, shootouts, and hand to hand combat scenes. I don't read a ton of 'action' books but the action scenes we get in most thrillers pale in comparison. I found Leadbeater's writing style to be incredibly straightforward on a line by line basis, but each line builds on the previous one and come together perfectly. We are mostly following Mason during these altercations but Mason is constantly tracking and checking on his allies so we do get some pretty crowded scenes. However, I never once had to backtrack or re-read a section to figure out who was doing what. Also, the scenes themselves were varied enough that they never felt repetitive despite the majority of this book being these action scenes. These scenes all read very cinematic to me and if this book was made into a movie, I'm pretty sure they could just do a shot-by-shot copy of the action scenes and it would be fantastic.
I really enjoyed the dual POV aspects of the book but they did mean some of the mystery aspects were gone. The book opens with the leader of the secret group organizing the theft on the Vatican. From there, we're mostly following Mason and his group, but we do continue to get chapters following the leader of this group. This felt very similar to The DaVinci Code where we get the occasional short chapter from the antagonist perspective but in that book those chapters still had a good amount of mystery to the reader. We weren't sure who, exactly, the antagonist was or what they wanted. In the case of The Vatican Secret, we basically get the villain monologue right from the beginning so there isn't much mystery left for the reader. It was moderately interesting, at first, to follow the 'bad guys' in their planning but the stakes weren't really high enough for me to really feel drawn into that plot line.
I really grew to like the characters by the end of the book, but the journey to get there was a bit rough. The characters all have their own baggage that was pretty significant, especially given the backgrounds of the characters (most ex-military in some form). I could see what Leadbeater was going for with these backgrounds and how the current situation would build on the backstories of each of the characters. However, these backgrounds never felt like they really came into play during the action portions of the story. Instead, they seemed to only come up when there was a lull in the action like when they are traveling to their next destination. Knowing the backstories now, I would have expected that the characters would have been much more dramatically affected by them and they would have had a direct impact on the current plot. For example, one character is described as being a rumored alcoholic and we see them drink pretty large quantities on page often but it never hinders that character's performance. Which, sure, that could be seen as the character being so good at what they do that they know their limits, but when we get the reason for the drinking, that doesn't explanation doesn't really work. Also, these characters felt like they were way more open with their backgrounds than I was expecting them to be especially considering the circumstances. By the end of the book, we have most of the down and dirty details of all the characters which makes me wonder what else, character-wise, will be revealed in later books in the series. I think if some of these reveals were turned down a notch or two, it would have given the reader a good enough idea of some aspects while also still leaving a bit of mystery to be revealed in later books. All that being said, the group of characters Mason puts together worked really well and had fantastic chemistry. There were some really great banter moments and I thought the slow team building was done really well.
The pacing was all over the place which made this a rough read. The action sequences were really fast paced but then once our characters escaped the situation, the pacing ground to a halt. Then the characters would sit around just long enough to get some character explanation in and then we'd be on to another action sequence. Now, of course the book can't be all action start to finish, but the sudden start/stop of the pacing was really jarring. For example, our main group would walk into an area where they needed to find something and everything would be nice and calm until suddenly once of them would spot someone who looked suspicious and then it was an instant chase scene until our main characters get away and then they're suddenly back at the hotel ordering room service. A bit more lead in or calm down period would have smoothed out these pacing changed much better.
The mystery elements and clues they had to follow to find the clandestine group were, honestly, pretty boring. The steps were the same at each new place they went and then when they found the clue, they'd hide out somewhere so the one character could dig through some research before putting the pieces together and announcing to the group where the next clue would be. In this story, Mason is literally just hired muscle so I understand why he doesn't have all this background knowledge on historical landmarks or facts. However, since we are only in Mason's POV, the reader gets left out on a lot of the mystery solving parts. Maybe if we got the POV from the character who was solving all the clues, it would have been more interesting. Also, for a book that is literally called "The Vatican Secret", there were a lot fewer secrets revealed than I was expecting. The ending and seeing how all these clues came together was moderately satisfying and it left off on a "I don't think that's the last we'll be seeing of them..." type of ending so hopefully more secrets will be revealed in later books in the series.
Overall, I think this was an interesting beginning to a series but there was just too much jammed into this one book. The action sequences were fantastic but I wish the character reveals were handled much more delicately and left some intrigue to be revealed in later books. I did really grow to love the group of misfits that we're following and I think their chemistry together was great so I'd look forward to reading more in the series.
Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for the ARC
Publication date was March 3, 2022
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