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The Conduct of Saints portrays a battleground on which power, God, sex, and the devil collide in the impoverished city of Rome during May and June of 1945.

The German occupation of the Eternal City has ended, the war in Europe is over, the atomic bomb has yet to fall on Japan, and Rome is under the jurisdiction of the victors: the American, British, and French Allied Control Commission.

An American Vatican prelate and lawyer, Brendan Doherty, is involved in two crusades. Abhorring capital punishment, he means to avert the execution of the Nazi collaborator Pietro Koch. Also, as devil's advocate, Doherty intends to prove the hypocrisy of Alessandro Serenelli, the man who forty years before murdered Maria Goretti. Converted by a vision, Serenelli has spent his life, in prison and out, promoting the beatification of his victim.

Doherty-memory tormented, hard drinking, both angry and compassionate, a moral street fighter for what he is sure is right-feels guilty for having done too little to save the city's Jews from Auschwitz. He engages in his causes and quarrels with Rome's pre-dolce vita, postwar society-people both fictional and historical, like Alessandro Serenelli, Maria Goretti, Pietro Koch, Pope Pius XII, and film director Luchino Visconti-until he comes to a reckoning with himself and with the serene, unshakable saint-maker Serenelli.

Christopher Davis has taught creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College, and other schools. He is presently senior lecturer emeritus in the arts at Bryn Mawr College. He has published numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and children's literature, as well as articles and short stories in national and foreign publications. He also has produced a play based on his novel A Peep into the 20th Century. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant. He is a recipient of the National Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Career Award.

David Colacci is an actor and director who has directed and performed in prominent theaters nationwide. His credits include roles from Shakespeare to Albee, as well as extensive work on new plays. As a narrator, he has won numerous Earphones Awards, earned Audie Award nominations, and been included in Best Audio of the Year lists by such publications as Publishers Weekly, AudioFile magazine, and Library Journal. He was a resident actor and director with the Cleveland Play House for eight years and has been artistic director of the Hope Summer Rep Theater since 1992.