A former Nazi general, now training Arab terrorists, attends a family reunion in Rome, his son being a priest. The novel chronicles his disgust with a degenerate city which he knew as a conqueror and his attempt to get even with the Jews by seducing a barmaid, an attempt that backfires when she turns out to be a Catholic. By the author of Pigeons on the Grass.

"Rome, 1518. Johann Faust is a renowned magician, astrologer, and chiromancer traveling through Germany with his successful troupe: the orphaned juggler Greta and his loyal companion Karl. The avaricious Pope Leo X now requires Johann's services to replenish the papacy's drained coffers through alchemy. But the devil, with whom a regretful Johann once agreed to an unholy trade for fame, wants something else. Racked with paralyzing seizures, Johann...