A Saving Grace

What does the news of the Pope's impending visit to Boston mean for the city's power politics, corrupt dealmakers, and warring newspapers? Is it true that the Pope is coming to work a miracle, to deliver an obscure saint who lives among them? That is the mainspring of the action in this sardonic, sharp, novel about journalism and political drama in a city that still has the Cabots and Lowells on the hill and the O'Tooles and the McCarthys at the harbor. Admirers of Edwin O'Connor's THE LAST HURRAH will find the portrayal of Mayor Connie Haydon, a Kennedy-generation of enormous charm, ego and ambition unforgettable. When Tony Owen, the town's hottest reporter starts to investigate the death of a derelict in a torched house on Duncan Avenue, a huge ball of string begins to unwind, and the end of it seems to lie in City Hall. The Pope does come at last, with results you'll find both amusing and tragic. There is indeed a most unlikely candidate for sainthood.