The Vatican Rip - Chapter 1 - The trouble with life is, you start off worse and go downhill

Jul 30, 2026

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The opening of The Vatican Rip launches Lovejoy, an antique dealer struggling through a difficult January marked by poor business and harsh weather. Snow isolates his village, delaying travel and pushing him into uneasy disputes over valuable lace. At a local auction run by aggressive newcomers, he quickly confronts the risks of old enemies, fresh pressures, and escalating stakes as bidding begins and key encounters surface. The narrative blends humor with suspense and a fast, character-driven start to the case.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages195

Reading Time5 h 0 min

Chapter 1

Lovejoy’s January troubles

Snow, travel delays, and lace arguments

Arrival at Seddon’s Auction Rooms

Lot Forty-One and a first crucial meeting

THE VATICAN RIP [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) The Lovejoy series The Judas Pair Gold from Gemini The Grail Tree Spend Game The Vatican Rip Firefly Gadroon The Sleepers of Erin The Gondola Scam Pearlhanger The Tartan Ringers Moonspender Jade Woman The Very Last Gambado The Great California Game The Lies ofFair Ladies Paid and Loving Eyes The Sin Within Her Smile The Grace in Older Women The Possessions ofa Lady The Rich and the Profane A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair Every Last Cent Ten Word Game Faces in the Pool [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Constable & Robinson Ltd. 55–56 Russell Square London WC1B 4HP [www.constablerobinson.com](www.constablerobinson.com) First published in the UK by Collins (The Crime Club), 1981 This edition published by C&R Crime, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013 Copyright © Jonathan Gash, 1981 The right of Jonathan Gash to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author ’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental. A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-47210-289-8 (paperback) ISBN: 978-1-47210-290-4 (ebook) Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon Printed and bound in the UK 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Cover illustration: Peter Mac; [Cover design: www.simonlevyassociates.co.uk](Cover design: www.simonlevyassociates.co.uk) [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) In Rome, effort is unknown, energy is without purpose . . . – Stendhal [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Dedicated to the Second Biennial Festival of Bolton, Greater Manchester (formerly Lancashire)–August 1981 – in gratitude for the rich appreciation of community feeling instilled in the author by his unique home town. [OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Chapter 1 The trouble with life is, you start off worse and go downhill. I’d bought the rip in winter, two days before my Italian lessons with the delectable Maria were to begin – though I didn’t know that then. I’m an antique dealer. The antiques game is always at a lowish ebb in January, probably because everybody’s spent up after Christmas and is knackered by the weather anyway, so I was on the scrounge and feeling very sorry for myself. It hadn’t been too easy of late, what with inflation and all that. And the scanty tourists who knock about East Anglia in deep midwinter tend to be holy, on their way to carol services in our ancient little chapels. They aren’t so keen on our priceless (or indeed worthless) antiques. On this particular day the roads out of my village were bad. There had been one of those heavy snowfalls the previous night after a solid weekend of sustained gales. Typically, the buses never even started out from the nearby town, and as far as civilization was concerned our village might have been on Mars. A couple of lads from Hall Farm managed to shift the worst snowdrifts using tractors and got the south road partially cleared by noon. I was lucky – so I thought – and got a lift in from Ann Scott, the cheerful and pretty lace-mad wife of an insurance assessor. She tried telling me that the famous nineteenth-century torchon lace was superior to Honiton if properly made. We argued all the way. She was wrong, of course.‘Torchon’ means dishcloth, but she wouldn’t be told. She has a

FAQs

Who is the protagonist in Chapter 1 of The Vatican Rip, and what does he do?

The protagonist is Lovejoy, an antique dealer. Chapter 1 centers on his struggles in January and his movements toward an auction.

Why is Lovejoy’s day disrupted at the start of Chapter 1?

Heavy snow and the failure of buses to run keep his village isolated. Roads are only partially cleared by tractors, delaying his arrival.

What event kicks off once Lovejoy reaches the auction?

The auction is already underway, with the auctioneer calling lots, including Lot Forty-One, a silver bookmark.

Jul 30, 2026

Upload by Skyler