SOURCE: "Under the Red Robe," in The Times Literary Supplement, October 2-8, 1987, p. 1073.

In the following positive review of The Color of Blood, Conway contends that, though character development suffers somewhat due to the demands of Moore's thriller format, the tautly paced novel nonetheless investigates "serious political and theological issues."

Black Robe, Brian Moore's last novel, and his first attempt at a historical theme, was a masterly exploration of the cultural abyss between the North American Indians and the Jesuit missionaries come in the name of God to "civilize" them. In The Colour of Blood the Jesuits again feature prominently and God is frequently invoked, but the time is the 1980s, the setting somewhere in the Eastern bloc (not Poland, although there are obvious similarities) and the style that of the political thriller.

Days before the bicentenary of the September Martyrs, an attempt is made on the life...