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Kdot, I'll respond to your review later today, but I wanted to highlight one item in particular, which is the danger from the "demon". The scene with Vitale evolved from your suggestion for some sort of threat early in the book + your other suggestion for making the reader care about the victims before I kill them off. The scene is also the natural place to put it, since the sleuthing begins in the next scene. Obviously, I'm introducing the demon right at the start, but I don't know how else to introduce the victim before his death and makes the reader care about him before the investigating begins.

If it was a cheap horror flick, the camera would slowly approach Vitale from behind with ominous music and then kill him before anyone really cares about him. Theoretically, I could invent some other opening for Vitale besides sitting in the church (e.g. perhaps a ride to the church plus a conversation with his driver before he enters the church and is killed by some unknown entity that the reader doesn't see).

I reread the scene from the perspective of whether I should write it horror-flick style but I think the fact that the demon is shrouded in shadows keeps the key element a secret (the true identity of the killer), while building a up a good deal of tension. He's not really a demon, by the way, but that's not important yet.

Thoughts?

I saw those. Thought they were intentional. Due to minor incompatibility between most word processors and other words processors (including the one on this site), you will generally get quirks like that.

Whenever I use indented paragraphs in my Word documents (e.g. the cardinal's phoney suicide note) those require me to manually go back into this site and manually indent them.

Try to avoid manually formatting anything in your master files, if possible. Use styles instead. That way you get fewer magic hidden characters copied over that the site doesn't know how to process.

Can you point me ata chapter that shows the botched formatting?  Fyi, the book and chapter summary boxes have broken formatting. I'm not sure why those can't be fixed. However, I've had no problems with the formatting of the chapter itself.

If you see new forum posts in your groups list, instead of clicking on the post, click on New Forum Posts. That takes you to a page that gives everything in the forum. From there you can click on the words 'new posts' next to a particular thread. I think that works. It's still a few too many clicks, but you saw what happens when someone makes suggestions for improvements. Vern is particular annoying because he likes to shoot down any changes to the site.

Actually, the fog isn't a problem. This is a supernatural being, not limited by lack of oxygen caused by dry ice. Romano charges into the mist but doesn't pass out, so he's left wondering if it was dry ice or supernatural fog.

Vern, in the time it took you to write that, the thing could already be fixed. And things don't get prioritized if we don't mention them.

The tricky part to work out next is the sleuthing/hunting/chasing to be done to fill half a book. Each death is a scene. The historical conspiracy in the Church archives will fill several scenes. A bunch of false leads will add some more. Security footage is good for at least a scene. There will of course be the obligatory car and foot chases. Reporting to the higher ups will be a scene. The ending will run five or more scenes (that overlap with Connor). I may add the special ops team back in for added tension and action. Add a stake out.

Also, there'll be an early scene where Angelo first introduces Inspector Campagna to Connor at the orphanage before the kid leaves for the Holy Land with Romano. Connor looks suspiciously like what Campagna's stolen baby might look like at age fourteen. Of course, according to chapter one, Connor was almost killed in a car accident that took his parents' lives, so could he really be her son?

Plans within plans.

Kdot, what's your opinion of my supernatural entity being able to change shape at will between demonic fog, the dark figure with glowing red eyes, human, and one other yet to be revealed? Basically he's a shape shifter and can take on whatever form he wishes. I plan to limit it to about four different forms, one of which doesn't appear until the end of the book.

Thoughts?

Yikes! Someone on my Catholic forum quoted a Christian definition of atonement which states that Christ atoned for the sins of all humanity. That almost broke my trilogy. If there's no one left to redeem, then my ending wouldn't have worked. Fortunately, someone else clarified that it was only the righteous who were redeemed.

Thank goodness for sinners.
Dirk