Killing the Pope

John Paul II and the Last Battle of the Cold War

A gripping account of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II from the bestselling author of Chernobyl

On a warm, sunny afternoon in May 1981, more than 10,000 pilgrims from all over the world gather on St. Peter’s Square for the start of Pope John Paul’s general audience. Out of nowhere, a gunshot is heard. John Paul collapses. A gunman is apprehended.

After the attempted assassination, John Paul II said that ‘one hand pulled the trigger, another guided the bullet’. But in this electrifying account of one of the most iconic events of the Cold War, historian Serhii Plokhy invites us to ask: what if there were far more than just two hands present that day? Drawing on new archival research, Plokhy accompanies the assassin as he travels across Europe in preparation for his strike, following the threads of the story into the corridors of the Kremlin and the Vatican, and through the inner circles of Turkish ultra-nationalists, KGB functionaries, Sicilian mafiosi and Catholic cardinals.

Both riveting and illuminating, Killing the Pope goes right to the heart of the Cold War in its final decade – an era of extreme paranoia, in which our own age of disinformation was slowly being born – and sheds new light on one of its most troubling and enduring mysteries.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.