El Cardenal debuted at No. 1 in Venezuela in May of 2007, a remained there for the next 17 months until ceding the top spot to the La Apelacion (The Appeal) by John Grisham in November of 2008. My novel earned a spot in Venezuela's top ten for 89 consecutive weeks, a run which lasted into February of 2009. During that time, it also spent four months on Uruguay's top ten list in mid-2008.

After a brief absence, my novel returned to Venezuela's top ten for a few weeks in late-March and Early-April. This coincided with a speech made by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in China in which he railed against his country's bishops for opposing his seizure of the nation's ports. The situation between the Chavez regime and the Church in Venezuela in many ways mirrors the Church-State conflict described in El Cardenal, which may in part explain of my novel's popularity there. A recent late-Summer/early-Fall resurgence on the Venezuela list brought the tally to 100 weeks.

What remains unexplained is how a novel with such a strong following could generate no royalties for its author. Inquiries are being made into this apparent discrepancy, but given the tacit support of the Chavez regime for the rampant theft of intellectual property, there is a strong possibility that my novel has been pirated.

Concurrent with El Cardenal's return to Venezuela's top ten, Chavez created a minor incident by giving a copy of Eduardo Galeano's The Open Veins of Latin America to US President Barack Obama during the opening session of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. Given the popularity of my novel among the people of Venezuela and the magnitude of US losses in that nation due to intellectual property piracy, I can think of my more appropriate gift for President Obama to respond with than a copy of The Secret Cardinal.

On a related note, both The Secret Cardinal and Spyder Web are now available as Avon paperbacks in the UK. Both books have appeared on Nielson BookScan Heatseeker's Chart. The rest of my novels will be available in the UK from Avon in 2010.

As yet, none of the imprisoned or detained bishops have been released. Just six days after the start of China's anniversary celebrations, Bishop James Lin Xili of Wenzhou (91) died after an almost 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. Bishop Lin died while under house arrest and had previously served 16 years in prison for counter-revolutionary crimes.