The color of the blood

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The Color of Blood is a political thriller by Brian Moore , which was published in 1989 by Diogenes Verlag in German translation. The original was published in English in 1987 under the title The Color of Blood .

time and place

It tells the last days in the life of the Roman Catholic cardinal primate Stephan Bem, who lives in an Eastern Bloc state that is not named. The country has been under communist rule for 40 years. The plot is therefore to be set in the mid-1980s.

action

The assassination attempt on the 56-year-old cardinal primate Bem, attempted by a man and a woman from a moving car, fails. Colonel Poulnikov of the state police fears a repetition of the murderous attack and hides the cardinal primate in the remote agricultural college of Ostrof. The priest Prisbek is housed in Bems adjoining room. The cardinal suspects that Prisbek belongs to the Patriotic Clergy , a movement in the small Eastern Bloc state that strongly condemns the Cardinal's Concordat (State Church Treaty) with the communist rulers. In addition, his guards persuade the cardinal that the two assassins come from church circles. So Bem has to distrust everyone around him. But he still has full confidence in Father Jan Ley, the old, loyal friend from his student days in Rome. Bem can contact the Father by phone and make an appointment. Bem is watching closely and after a while comes to the conclusion that his guards may not even be from the state police. He can escape. The priest assists Bem in going into hiding. Bem learns the name of the male assassin from him: Gregor Danekin, the son of the former prime minister from before 1945. The father has more to tell. General Vrona, head of the state police, is looking for the first representative of the Catholic Church in the small country, who has disappeared from the scene without a trace, on behalf of the incumbent communist Prime Minister General Franz Urban . Bem, operating lonely from illegality, wants to contact the banned union in order to prevent the activities of the patriotic clergy , which in his opinion are anti-church . In these efforts he is picked up by Vrona's people. Prime Minister Urban, with whom Bem attended the Jesuit school, gives the old schoolmate a 24-hour period to restrain the Patriotic Clergy . But Vrona wants to strike immediately. He is against the deadline for the cardinal, this "enemy of socialism".

Immediately before a high mass at a pilgrimage site , the cardinal's suspicions that certain state police officers are not genuine are confirmed. Bem is surprised again by the priest Prisbek and the fake state police officer Poulnikov. Prisbek is a traitor. Poulnikov identifies himself as Waldemar Keller, descendant of a member of the London government in exile during the war . Keller is the head of the conspirators who successfully harness the Patriotic Clergy to their carts. Danekin allegedly acted against Keller's orders. The bishop succeeds in outwitting Prisbek and Keller, but the assassin, Danekin's sister, shoots Bem at close range during the high mass.

Structure and style

The novel is structured chronologically and divided into 21 chapters without headings. The story is told only from the perspective of the Cardinal Primate. From the continuous imperfect tense, the narrator only occasionally and very briefly falls into the present tense when he lets the protagonist think. Towards the end of the novel, the reader has got used to this style . For the narrator, even if there are several people acting directly, one "he" is usually sufficient to clearly identify the cardinal primate.

Awards

literature

  • The color of the blood. Roman ("The color of blood") Translated from the English by Otto Bayer. 195 pages. Diogenes, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-257-21996-2 .
  • The color of blood . McCelland & Stewart, Toronto 1987, ISBN 0-7710-6448-9 .

Web links

In English

swell

  1. ↑ Source, p. 149