THE HOLY NAIL

It’s 1945 and World War II is effectively over in Europe. Two American GIs, Nick Genova and Joe Cohen, have fought their way up the Italian Peninsula and are now on leave in Milan. The two New Yorkers are so close that they’re known as a single unit called “Brooklyn.” Nick has heard about a local relic known as the Holy Nail—supposedly one of those used to nail Jesus Christ to the cross. The pair, with help of Maria Bravia, an antifascist and a stone-cold killer, steal it from the Duomo, the cathedral of Milan. Now the game is afoot. Do they sell it? Bargain with the Catholic Church to ransom it? Eventually the police, the Mafia (both in Naples and New York), and the Vatican are all drawn into the fray. Later, “Brooklyn” is repatriated to Brooklyn, where they’re still trying to get rid of the Nail, and hopefully profit from their crime. It does not go well, as dealings with the Mafia seldom do. However, there is a final, intriguing fillip to the tale, involving the Nail and one of Joe’s relations, just in case readers had gotten too smug. Any novel about holy relics, and particularly a satirical one such as this, must grapple with the fact that holy relics have been a booming business for scammers for centuries. The Holy Nail is an actual object that resides today at the Duomo in Milan, where it’s presumably shown to the faithful once a year—but this novel amusingly throws it into doubt, as if to ask what a reader going to believe: the skeptics or their own eyes? (The belief that Jesus’ foreskin is preserved in some church somewhere—briefly mentioned in the text—need not detain readers.) A final plot turn leaves readers with a wonderful theological teaser about the power of faith and feels as if Serby has set out to gleefully blow up his own satire.