As one of the raft of quickie biographies of Pope Benedict XVI starting to float ashore, Greg Tobin's book is decidedly middling. It's more journalistic and well-informed on Vatican inside-baseball than Stephen Mansfield's "Pope Benedict XVI: His Life and Mission," but still well below the standard set by John L. Allen's "The Rise of Benedict XVI."

This book, like Gaul, is divided into three parts. The first is a capsule history of the papacy that Tobin may well have written in advance, intending to insert into his book on the new pope whoever he turned out to be. The last section is a list of all previous popes, with a quick description of them and the events of their reign. This leaves only about 70 pages for Joseph Ratzinger -- and really even less than that. That's because the final chapter, "Urbi et Orbi: The State of the Church in the World" is a recitation of the challenges facing the Roman Catholic Church as Tobin sees them, and how he expects the new pope to deal with them. In this chapter too, it felt a little like Tobin left a space reading "[fill in new pope's name here]" so he could polish it off as soon after the election as possible.

I would have loved to have seen Tobin's reaction to that election. That's because in his 2003 book "Selecting the Pope: Uncovering the Mysteries of Papal Elections," Tobin memorably wrote, "A curial cardinal is, almost by definition, not *papabile.* Although Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- which used to be the Holy Office, and before that the Inquisition -- is a highly regarded theologian and intellectual, he is one of the least likely to be elected pope." Oddly, Tobin chooses not to address his error in this new book.

If you're looking for a quick introduction to the new pope, this book isn't a bad place to start, as long as you keep in mind the errors and misstatements other reviewers have pointed out. But if you are willing to invest a bit more time in the project, I would still encourage you instead to find a copy of Allen's "Rise of Benedict XVI" (but don't confuse that book with his other one titled "Pope Benedict XVI," which is really his older Ratzinger biography reissued with a new title; Allen has quite properly backed away from some of what he wrote in that earlier book).

In HOLY FATHER, author Greg Tobin offers a concise examination of the new Pope Benedict XVI.

The brief (140+ page) book provides a cursory history of the papacy, then shifts to a review of Benedict's life in a generally well-structured, readable prose.

The book was rushed into print fairly quickly after Cardinal Ratzinger's elevation to the papacy and suffers from several errors that could have been avoided by more judicious editing. One in particular is with respect to papal infallibility. There was no Ascension of the Blessed Mother, for example. Rather, the proper term is the "Assumption" of the Blessed Mother.

Despite this, the book will provide a decent introduction to the new Pope, a gifted theologian who will guide the church most likely for a few years at least.