FINAL JUDGEMENT

by Daniel Easterman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1996

With help from an unlikely ally, a hard-boiled Israeli battles renascent fascists to a bloody standstill throughout Italy in another (his tenth) slick thriller from Easterman (The Night of the Apocalypse, 1995, etc.) Yosef Abuhatseria, a militant Sephardic Jew who served in one of Israel's elite antiterrorist units and later settled in the Occupied Territories, arrives in Sardinia at the request of his brother-in-law, a hotelier whose son Yoel has been abducted. Aided by Maryam Shumayyil, a comely Arab ‚migr‚ who serves as his interpreter, the Moroccan-born Yosef manages to rescue the missing child from a mountain hideaway (leaving four bodies behind). There's no reunion, however, because unknown parties have brutally murdered Yoel's parents. After delivering the traumatized youngster to family members in Israel, Yosef is unofficially encouraged by Mossad to delve more deeply into the puzzling case. Further killings and several attempts on his life convince him that he's uncovered crucial pieces of a wide-ranging conspiracy. Having become ardent lovers under the threat of mortal perils, Yosef and Maryam evade their pursuers long enough to reach the mainland, where they join forces with a Jewish self-defense group in Turin. This band of irregulars has been gathering evidence against a revisionist historian on trial for claiming that the Holocaust never happened. His suspicions confirmed, Yosef is drawn into a deadly endgame that pits him against an aging SS officer bent on establishing a new, racially pure Reich throughout Europe. Having survived a lethal encounter with his neo-Nazi foes in the subterranean caverns that underlie Turin, however, Yosef finds that he's no longer capable of virulent hatred--for Palestinians or any other presumptive enemy. At the close, Yosef and Maryam leave for an uncertain future together. An absorbingly far-fetched tale that blends tomorrow-the-world villains with heroic protagonists. Notable for above-average complexities, exotic locales, and a wealth of slam-bang action.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 304

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996

Categories: FICTION