Cold Case: The killing the Vatican would rather forget

Does anyone care about the dead man called "God's Banker" any more?

Giuseppe (Pippo) Calo does. He is one of the five defendants accused of complicity in the murder of Roberto Calvi, the chairman of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano from 1975 until his mysterious and sensational death in 1982.

The Cold War spawned an unholy alliance in Italy, uniting the Vatican, the Mafia, U.S. and U.K. spy networks, freemasons and the country's most powerful politicians. Banker Roberto Calvi pulled financial strings for elements in each of these forces, and it would cost him his life.

Almost 25 years after Calvi was found hanging under London's Blackfriars Bridge on June 18, 1982, Philip Willan tries to unravel the mysterious death in ``The Last Supper: The Mafia, the Masons and the Killing of Roberto Calvi.''

A British journalist who has worked in Rome for 27 years, Willan lays out evidence of ``a real-life `Da Vinci Code': a fiendishly complex plot, a struggle for power, skullduggery in the Vatican and ruthless individuals who do not balk at murder.'' The meticulously researched book makes for a surprisingly smooth and fascinating read amid the current Calvi murder trial in Rome.