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NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY EDWARD BERGER AND STARRING RALPH FIENNES, STANLEY TUCCI, JOHN LITHGOW, AND ISABELLA ROSSELLINI • NOMINATED FOR AN ACADEMY AWARD® FOR BEST PICTURE • The page-turning thriller set in the Vatican's secretive halls of power by the best-selling author of Enigma and Fatherland

"Pulsates with intrigue. . . . Ambition, sex scandals, financial corruption and terrorism all rear their ugly heads. And Harris saves one whopper of a surprise for the final pages." —USA Today

The pope is dead. Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will gather to cast their votes in the world's most secretive election. They are holy men. But they are not immune to the human temptations of power and glory. And they are not above the tribalism and factionalism that consumes humanity. When all is said and done, one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on Earth.

Review

“Harris has written a gripping, smart book. . . . This could become the Catholic version of The Satanic Verses.”
—Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times Book Review

“Splendid . . . Harris does not disappoint. . . . Whether you have faith in God, the Church, or neither, Conclave will keep you richly entertained.”
—Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post

“Triumphant . . . I am about to use a word I have never knowingly used in any review of any book ever. During my 25-odd years of writing about books I have done my best to avoid clichés, slipshod summaries, oracular pronouncements and indeed anything else that might appear emblazoned on a book jacket. Nonetheless, there is only one possible word to describe Robert Harris’s new novel, and it is this: unputdownable.”
—Ian Sansom, The Guardian

“A gripping read in the authentic Harris mould . . . Conclave, though, is more than a crime novel, it is also a psychological and political thriller . . . The more one looks, the more cunning the book seems. Conclave is a triumphant addition to Harris’s acclaimed output.”
—David Grylls, The Sunday Times

“A gripping read. There are plenty of plot twists, revelations and high politicking to hook readers in. . . . An ecclesiastical version of House of Cards . . . Conclave is admirably brisk—and its final twist is great fun.”
—Robbie Millen, The Times

“A slick and fast-paced thriller . . . This entertaining and satisfying page-turner tells the tense story of the Machiavellian machinations of ambitious men, locked in a power-struggle that can only end in a puff of white smoke and power.”
—Huston Gilmore, The Daily Express

“Ambition and intrigues are familiar ground to a former political journalist . . . gripping.”
—Rachel Cooke, The Observer

“Fast-written and suspenseful, it’s elegantly written entertainment from a first-rate storyteller.”
—Simon Humphreys, The Mail on Sunday

“Despite papal fiction being such a crowded church, Harris, in Conclave, contrives a twist involving the number of cardinal-electors that seems to me completely new.”
—Mark Lawson, The Guardian

“The novel begins to grip like a vice and manages to convey all the drama of an election without resorting to melodrama. He pulls off the difficult trick of making his cardinals seem no less holy for all their human foibles and, although this ruminative and low-key novel is very different from Harris’s other books, it is well up to their standard.”
—Charlotte Heathcote, Sunday Express

“The smartest bestselling author at work today . . . [Conclave is] a modern-day story that explores the power, glory and skullduggery behind the process of electing a new pope.”
—Richard T. Kelly, Esquire (UK)

“Another high-class Harris thriller.”
—James Walton, Reader’s Digest (UK)

“An impressive outing from an extremely versatile author.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Robert Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland to An Officer and a Spy, scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies....An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation." –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

About the Author

ROBERT HARRIS is the author of ten best-selling novels: Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, Imperium, The Ghost Writer, Conspirata, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, and Dictator. Several of his books have been adapted to film, most recently The Ghost Writer, directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. He lives in the village of Kintbury, England, with his wife, Gill Hornby.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

At 6:30 a.m., the alarm sounded throughout the Casa Santa Marta—a clanging seminary bell. Lomeli opened his eyes. He was curled up on his side. He felt groggy, raw. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, only that it couldn’t have been for more than an hour or two. The sudden remembrance of all he had to do in the coming day passed over him like a wave of nausea, and for a while he lay unable to move. Normally his waking routine was to meditate for fifteen minutes then rise and say his morning prayers. But on this occasion, when at last he managed to summon the will to put his feet to the floor, he went directly into the bathroom and ran a shower as hot as he could bear. The water scourged his back and shoulders. He twisted and turned beneath it and cried out in pain. Afterwards he rubbed away the moisture on the mirror and surveyed with disgust his raw and scalded skin. My body is clay, my good fame a vapour, my end is ashes.

He felt too tense to breakfast with the others. He stayed in his room, rehearsing his homily and attempting to pray, and left it until the very last minute to go downstairs.

The lobby was a red sea of cardinals robing for the short procession to St. Peter’s. The officials of the Conclave, led by Archbishop Mandorff and Monsignor O’Malley, had been allowed back into the hostel to assist; Father Zanetti was waiting at the foot of the stairs to help Lomeli dress. They went into the same waiting room opposite the chapel in which he had met Woźniak the night before. When Zanetti asked him how he had slept, he replied, “Very soundly, thank you,” and hoped the young priest would not notice the dark circles beneath his eyes and the way his hands shook when he handed him his sermon for safe keeping. He ducked his head into the opening of the thick red chasuble that had been worn by successive Deans of the College over the past twenty years and held out his arms as Zanetti fussed around him like a tailor, straightening and adjusting it. The mantle felt heavy on his shoulders. He prayed silently: Lord, who hast said, My yoke is easy and My burden is light, grant that I may so bear it as to attain Thy grace. Amen. Zanetti stood in front of him and reached up to place upon

Zanetti stood in front of him and reached up to place upon his head the tall mitre of white watered silk. The priest stepped back a pace to check it was correctly aligned, squinted, came forward again and altered it by a millimetre, then walked behind Lomeli and tugged down the ribbons at the back and smoothed them. It felt alarmingly precarious. Finally he gave him the crozier. Lomeli lifted the golden shepherd’s crook a couple of times in his left hand, testing the weight. You are not a shepherd, a familiar voice whispered in his head. You are a manager. He had a sudden urge to give it back, to tear off the vestments, to confess himself a fraud and disappear. He smiled and nodded. “It feels good,” he said. “Thank you.”

Just before 10 a.m., the cardinals began moving off from the Casa Santa Marta, walking out of the plate-glass doors in pairs, in order of seniority, checked off by O’Malley on his clipboard. Lomeli, resting on the crozier, waited with Zanetti and Mandorff beside the reception desk. They had been joined by Mandorff’s deputy, the Dean of the Master of Papal Ceremonies, a cheerful, tubby Italian monsignor named Epifano, who would be his chief assistant during the Mass. Lomeli spoke to no one, looked at no one. He was still trying vainly to clear a space in his mind for God. Eternal Trinity, I intend by Your grace to celebrate Mass to Your glory, and for the benefit of all, both living and dead, for whom Christ died, and to apply the ministerial fruit for the choosing of a new Pope . . .

At last they stepped out into the blank November morning. The double file of scarlet-robed cardinals stretched ahead of him across the cobbles towards the Arch of the Bells, where they disappeared into the basilica. Again the helicopter hovered somewhere nearby; again the faint sounds of demonstrators carried on the cold air. Lomeli tried to shut out all distractions, but it was impossible. Every twenty paces stood security men who bowed their heads as he passed and blessed them. He walked with his supporters beneath the arch, across the piazza dedicated to the early martyrs, along the portico of the basilica, through the massive bronze door and into the brilliant illumination of St. Peter’s, lit for the television cameras, where a congregation of twenty thousand was waiting. He could hear the chanting of the choir beneath the dome and the vast echoing rustle of the multitude. The procession halted. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, willing stillness, conscious of the immense throng standing close-packed all around him—nuns and priests and lay clergy, staring at him, whispering, smiling.

Eternal Trinity, I intend by Your grace to celebrate Mass to Your glory . . .

After a couple of minutes, they moved on again, up the wide central aisle of the nave. He glanced from side to side, leaning on the crozier with his left hand, motioning vaguely with his right, conferring his blessing upon the blur of faces. He glimpsed himself on a giant TV screen—an erect, elaborately costumed, expressionless figure, walking as if in a trance. Who was this puppet, this hollow man? He felt entirely disembodied, as though he were floating alongside himself.

At the end of the aisle, where the nave gave on to the cupola of the dome, they had to pause beside Bernini’s statue of St. Longinus, close to where the choir was singing, and wait while the last few pairs of cardinals filed up the steps to kiss the central altar and descended again. Only when this elaborate manoeuvre had been completed was Lomeli himself cleared to walk around to the rear of the altar. He bowed towards it. Epifano stepped forward and took away the crozier and gave it to an altar boy. Then he lifted the mitre from Lomeli’s head, folded it, and handed it to a second acolyte. Out of habit, Lomeli touched his skullcap to check it was in place.

Together he and Epifano climbed the seven wide carpeted steps to the altar. Lomeli bowed again and kissed the white cloth. He straightened and rolled back the sleeves of his chasuble as if he were about to wash his hands. He took the silver thurible of burning coals and incense from its bearer and swung it by its chain over the altar—seven times on this side, and then, walking round, a separate censing on each of the other three. The sweet-smelling smoke evoked feelings beyond memory. Out of the corner of his eye he saw dark-suited figures moving his throne into position. He gave back the thurible, bowed again and allowed himself to be conducted round to the front of the altar. An altar boy held up the missal, opened to the correct page; another extended a microphone on a pole.

Once, in his youth, Lomeli had enjoyed a modest fame for the richness of his baritone. But it had become thin with age, like a fine wine left too long. He clasped his hands, closed his eyes for a moment, took a breath, and intoned in a wavering plainsong, amplified around the basilica:

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti . . .”
And from the colossal congregation arose the murmured sung response:
“Amen.”
He raised his hands in benediction and chanted again, extending the three syllables into half a dozen:
“Pa-a-x vob-i-is.”
And they responded:
“Et cum spiritu tuo.”
He had begun.

Excerpted from Conclave by Robert Harris. Copyright © 2016 by Robert Harris. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Exciting!

S. · August 1, 2025

A conclave has to take place, now that the pope has died, and Cardinal Lomeli is in charge. One hundred and eighteen cardinals must meet in the Sistine Chapel to decide who will be the pope’s successor. These cardinals are holy men, but they are still vulnerable to human weaknesses. Cardinal Lomeli must handle various problems in order to make sure that the proceedings run according to tradition and church law.This is a wonderful book. It moves a long and it is never a dull moment! The character development is outstanding and the vivid settings are breath-taking. This is an awesome tale about the struggle between striving for holiness and coping with human frailty.

4.0 out of 5 stars "The power of God, the ambition of men"

R.H.C. · December 11, 2016

Having recently reviewed the author's magnificent Cicero trilogy, it was quite an adjustment to jump to the present day and focus upon the selection of a new Pope by the college of Cardinals. But Harris is such a fine writer, who so thoroughly does his research, and skillfully can explain concepts (whether the Roman Senate or the Church's Curia) to the uninitiated, that this was an easy transition. While I don't believe the current volume is as strong as some others Harris has written, there is no question that this man can spin a yarn that will entrap the reader, and maybe educate him a bit as well.The pluses are many, including those identified above. Few writers are as skillful in building suspense while explaining procedures in this setting unfamiliar to most of us. He is particularly effective here in showing how the Cardinals were "politicking" while they were supposed not to engage in this very practice. He concisely explains through the characters what the Curia ("the heart and brain of the Church") is and how it functions in selecting a new Pope. The reader comes to understand such terms as "apostolic constitution" and "in pectore" or secret selection of a new Cardinal. I found the disagreements between the progressive and traditional wings of the college, which has been going on since at least the papacy of Pope John XXIII in the 1960's, and which has prompted fears of an eventual "Great Schism," to emerge with some clarity from the story.However, even an author as skilled as Harris faces tremendous difficulties in rendering the election of a Pope as an exciting event. As one Cardinal mentions, it is "a laborious routine." Vote after vote occurs, each one virtually identical to the others. There is also a lot of praying going on which is not too stimulating to read. Basically, the action is limited to the Sistine Chapel and the Cardinals' dorm. So the basic story is not too exciting, though interesting.Apparently to liven things up, Harris resorts to what I shall term the "surprise" and the "really big surprise." While the surprise (that involves terrorism) works well I think, given what Europe has recently experienced (especially France), the really big surprise right at the end I thought highly ill-advised and verging on sensationalism. It also immediately ends the novel so the reader is left to construct his own final conclusion to the story. These are just my personal reactions, but they do play a role for me in dropping to four stars rather than five. Nonetheless, a fine thriller well worthy of reading.Once again, a fine job by Berryville Graphics in Virginia in producing the book.

5.0 out of 5 stars This It's a wonderful story and worth reading!

G.B. · October 7, 2025

This book is an amazing and very well researched story about the Conclave in the Catholic Church when a new pope is to be elected. Love the movie and appreciate the book! Wonderful!

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written and engrossing from start to finish. Caveat: not for rigidly staunch Catholics.

G. · May 10, 2025

This was an excellently written book! The author kept my attention the whole time. There are those who seem to find an issue with the ending on religious grounds, which has nothing to do with the quality of writing. You were perhaps looking for a book to reinforce your own beliefs?The ending was one I never, ever expected. I liked that it left the reader hanging, wondering what happened and what it would all mean in the future.I enjoyed the strong character of the nun who speaks out, as well as the quiet nature of Cardinal Benitez. A very engrossing book from start to finish.

5.0 out of 5 stars great book

K.C. · October 5, 2025

Absolutely wonderful. More twist and turns to this book. You learn the process of choosing a Pope. I found it a wonderful book. Highly recommend

4.0 out of 5 stars engrossing plot and characters - not sure about the final plot twist

K.W. · November 17, 2024

I have a longstanding interest in books about the upper reaches of internal Catholic politics (such as Morris West has written about), so this book was right up my alley. The degree of suspense, soul-searching, and potential skullduggery might be sufficient to please readers who don't have that particular interest. The main character, with his introspection that may or may not be as thorough as he believes, was engrossing to follow, as were several secondary characters.I'm not sure the final plot twist was (a) necessary and (b) thoroughly credible. Nor am I sure it isn't.

Conclave

H. · May 19, 2025

How prescient to be reading this at the time of the death of a Pope - a funeral - a Conclave. And finally the election of a new Pope.Fascinating and absorbing read. Quite a thriller. I think I read it as a documentary! So real.Do read this immaculately researched book - it was quite a ride.

Great read

L. · May 24, 2025

Excellent read, couldn't put it down.

Excelente

G. · March 27, 2025

Excelente. Muito interessante, nos leva a conhecer a política religiosa e os conchavos no Vaticano.

Terrific, tense story about selecting a new Pope

C. · April 6, 2025

I watched the excellent movie before reading the book and felt both helped clarify my understanding.The movie needed clarification about some of the character's schemes and deceptions. Further explanations in the book solved this. The novel made it difficult to sort out all the characters, but when the movie put faces on the Cardinals, it was much easier to identify them.The Pope has just died, and 118 Cardinals from all over the world have gathered to select a new Pope worthy of the spiritual role. The Conclave is the secret but much-followed process of appointing a new Pope. This is a highly political process combined with religious faith. The well-described, multi-dimensional fictional Cardinals are divided between a leading candidate, Tedesco, who wants to overturn Vatican 11 and restore the Church to more conservative views, and Bellini, a friend of Lomeli, who has liberal views. Bellini says he would never accept the position if elected.A previously unknown Cardinal, Benitez, secretly appointed to the position by the late Pope has arrived. He was originally from the Philippines, where he worked with the most impoverished and then in trouble spots in Africa and Baghdad. His appointment from Archbishop to Cardinal was secret to protect his safety in war zones. His time was spent with victims of war, especially women who were raped by the enemies in genocidal brutality. He insists he has the right to choose the next Pope and is accepted into the group of electors.The 118 highly religious men have ambitions to be Pope or are afraid of being chosen for the role. They commit deceit and betrayal against their rivals and plot to have their favourites advance in the voting. There are acts of simony where church funds are used to buy votes. Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, oversees the Conclave and is having doubts about his faith. The process is a long, drawn-out affair, and seven times ending with no person with sufficient votes. Each time, the names and order of candidates vary. Lomeli gives a fine speech, emphasizing tolerance and forgiveness, but acts harshly when he discovers that the leading candidate, African Cardinal Adeyemi, had an affair thirty years earlier, and the woman is brought to the Sistine Chapel from Nigeria by a rival to discredit Adeyemi. Lomeli makes him resign any hopes of becoming the first Black Pope. Lomeli is bothered by the report that Cardinal Trembly, a French-Canadian, was fired by the late Pope just before his death but can't discover why. As the voting drags on, Lomeli receives votes and ponders the possibility of becoming Pope.Far from being dull, this is a compelling, tense, and highly suspenseful story. Harris has done intensive research and presents a masterful portrayal of the routines and rituals involved in the Conclave. I was pleased with the person finally chosen as the new Pope but felt the final reveal was unnecessary and bound to provoke controversy.

Une surprise du fin,

j.c. · July 23, 2025

Incroyable,le fin du livre est extraordinaire

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Conclave: A novel

Product ID: U0593689585

Condition: New

4.4

Type: Paperback

^AED77¹⁰

Price includes VAT & Import Duties

Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

Returns & Warranty policies

Imported From: United States

At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.

Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.

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Review

About the Author

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Exciting!

S. · August 1, 2025

4.0 out of 5 stars "The power of God, the ambition of men"

R.H.C. · December 11, 2016

5.0 out of 5 stars This It's a wonderful story and worth reading!

G.B. · October 7, 2025

This book is an amazing and very well researched story about the Conclave in the Catholic Church when a new pope is to be elected. Love the movie and appreciate the book! Wonderful!

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written and engrossing from start to finish. Caveat: not for rigidly staunch Catholics.

G. · May 10, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars great book

K.C. · October 5, 2025

Absolutely wonderful. More twist and turns to this book. You learn the process of choosing a Pope. I found it a wonderful book. Highly recommend

4.0 out of 5 stars engrossing plot and characters - not sure about the final plot twist

K.W. · November 17, 2024

Conclave

H. · May 19, 2025

Great read

L. · May 24, 2025

Excellent read, couldn't put it down.

Excelente

G. · March 27, 2025

Excelente. Muito interessante, nos leva a conhecer a política religiosa e os conchavos no Vaticano.

Terrific, tense story about selecting a new Pope

C. · April 6, 2025

Une surprise du fin,

j.c. · July 23, 2025

Incroyable,le fin du livre est extraordinaire

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