The solemn, secretive conclave of Catholic cardinals who elect a successor to Pope Francis got underway Thursday. As the Catholic world waits and watches, there's attention to books new and old, and factual and fictionalized, about the late pope and the rules and rituals of the voting. And Catholic publishers are lining up writers and checking their lists in case one of their authors is elected.

Orbis has teed up three titles by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, a papabile, just in case. And at Loyola, the press has engaged a veteran author to pounce as soon as the new pope is named. Christopher White, associate director and senior fellow at Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, who won awards for his Vatican coverage for the National Catholic Reporter, is already working on his next title summarizing the papacy of Pope Francis, the conclave process, and the history of whoever is selected. "We expect it to be the first book on the new pope to market" as soon as the new pope is named, said John Christensen, Loyola VP of sales and marketing.

There are many serious looks at the conclave, including a new title published in March. Two journalists specializing in Vatican coverage, Javier Martínez-Brocal and Fr. Jose de Jesus Aguilar, independently published Conclave: The Rules for Electing the Next Pope: Updated with the Latest Changes, on March 10; the book details the rules and procedures for the selection of the next pontiff, including some Francis changed in November.

And while the conclave is serious holy business—addressing contesting ideas over how to lead and convey the faith and values of the Catholic Church, which comprises 1.3 billion people—it is also catnip for writers of thrillers and conspiracies, with the process often characterized by the cultural, political, and social tensions that simmer among the 133 cardinals who are eligible to vote. Until the cardinals were locked into the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to begin the balloting, thousands of news-hungry members of the media chased them, hoping to post comments from a cardinal about the papabile, nickname for rumored frontrunners.

Meanwhile, the curious public is left with their imagination—and a choice of dozens of plot-packed novels to choose among. Leading the way, according to Circana Bookscan, is Conclave (Vintage) by Robert Harris, the 2016 bestseller that became a starry Hollywood film last fall. It sold nearly 10,000 more copies in the time period between Francis's Valentine's Day hospitalization and the week after his death at Easter.

In an interview with PW in 2016, Harris called the conclave, "in essence, albeit cloaked in sacred ritual, a struggle for power, and all my books are about power, in one form or another. Often they are centered on small groups in which there is a struggle for control. I also like to write novels with a very tight time frame and location. In a sense, Conclave is my apotheosis: the most absolute, the oldest, the most concentrated electoral process in the world." Harris’s novel—rife with geo-political jousting and revelations of sexual and financial misdeeds, interspersed with some transcendent words of love and peace from a surprising source—ends with a shocker.

But long before Harris, another novelist also mined the conclave for twists and turns. White Smoke: A Novel About the Next Papal Conclave (Macmillan) was first published in 1996, and is still on sale in multiple formats. It was written by Andrew M. Greeley—a Catholic priest, sociologist, university professor, and prolific author of 100 works of nonfiction and 50 often-racy plot-packed novels—before his death in 2013. White Smoke has it all: Tension between conservative and moderate cardinals, cardinals who leak to the press, dueling reporters who happen to be bitterly divorced, fear that a Vatican banking scandal will be exposed, and a would-be papal assassin lurking.

Now, the world is watching as a real conclave is held, waiting for the sign that a pope has been chosen by 2/3 of the voters: white smoke drifting from a chimney above the chapel. The moment he steps out on a Vatican balcony to say his name to the world, fact replaces fiction.

This story has been updated with further information.