An inviting look at an ancient king and the lives of those around him.
Niko’s (The Oracle, 2015, etc.) historical novel focuses on King Solomon and his first wife.
The year is 965 B.C.E., and a young King Solomon is pleased to see the temple planned by his father, King David, being built in Jerusalem. With the wise priest Zadok by his side, Solomon seems “destined for the role he had stepped into: leading God’s chosen people into a new era of greatness and prosperity.” The temple under construction is meant to convey such greatness and will eventually hold the Ark of the Covenant. For his grand scheme, though, Solomon requires a large quantity of gold, and obtaining such a treasure will require negotiation with the often hostile Egyptians. Solomon is untroubled by such a proposition, and he travels to Zoan with a small contingent to meet with Pharaoh Psusennes II. In the process of acquiring the gold, Solomon becomes mesmerized by the pharaoh’s daughter Nicaule. A marriage pact is soon formed that seals peace between the kingdoms of Egypt and Israel. If Nicaule’s unhappiness is any indication, however, such peace is tepid at best. Nicaule is forced to leave behind both her homeland and her lover, Shoshenq, a situation she is powerless to prevent and that leaves her far from cheerful. Will she ever be able to return to Egypt? Will she ever feel any loyalty to Solomon and his reign? Following the plot as Nicaule gives birth, Zadok marvels at the completed temple, and Solomon begins his long decline, the reader is given a view of this legendary time in digestible portions. Although the dialogue tends toward the grand (as when Solomon tells Nicaule: “Your voice is like honey dripping from the belly of a fig”), the story progresses in such a way as to be believable, in increments inspired more by historical possibilities than historical hyperboles. More than a mere biblical bodice-ripper, the narrative provides a studied look at the time of this king and what it might mean, for instance, to visit Solomon’s Temple with its “altar of burnt offering, built of hewn stones with twelve steps leading up to the massive fire pit.”
An inviting look at an ancient king and the lives of those around him.Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-942546-22-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Medallion Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta (Cruel and Unusual, 1993, etc.) has given up smoking and strayed far enough from her high-pressure office to act as a consulting profiler for the FBI, but her nerves are just as frayed at Quantico, especially since her rebellious niece Lucy is a computer-whiz trainee for the Engineering Research Facility down the hall. Scarpetta's latest case is ugly even by her standards: the North Carolina sex murder of Emily Steiner, 11, whose forensics are so contradictory that Scarpetta wants to exhume her for a second autopsy. Before she can do so, North Carolina Bureau investigator Max Ferguson, returning home from Quantico, dies, apparently of autoerotic asphyxia, and his local contact winds up in the hospital with a heart attack. Scarpetta scurries to work out how and why Temple Gault, an apparent serial killer who's the leading suspect in Emily's murder, might have killed Ferguson—and what to make of her gruesome discovery in Ferguson's freezer. No sooner has she finished the grisly re-examination of Emily, than word comes from Quantico that Lucy's sneaked into an unauthorized area after hours and is getting washed out of the program. Scarpetta's two nightmares come together with a crash—a car crash that sends Lucy to the hospital and Scarpetta out to the field to run forensics on her own automobile. As always, tension is ratcheted up, rather unconvincingly, by plots whose interconnection is never quite clear and by the constant friction between Scarpetta and her niece; her sister; her FBI lover, Benton Wesley; her boorish buddy, Capt. Pete Marino; and Emily's mother, with whom Marino is having an affair. But beneath the welter of quarrels and coincidences is as insidious a study of evil as Cornwell has turned in. (Literary Guild main selection)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-684-19597-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
Although the pace of this intricate tale is necessarily slow, the investigation and its ultimate destination are gripping.
An investigation into an 11-year-old murder unearths some surprising revelations in Inspector Ian Rutledge’s 21st case (The Gate Keeper, 2018, etc.).
Rutledge survived World War I shellshocked and living with the ghostly voice of Hamish, a comrade who died in his arms. When he helps a former soldier find his wife, the grateful man gives him a tip that might help Rutledge find one of the most wanted men in Britain, Alan Barrington, who was accused of murder over a decade earlier and hasn't been seen since. Rutledge's boss gives him the unwelcome job of following up the clue, which begins the inspector's unrelenting search for the truth. Barrington had been accused of engineering a motor crash that killed Blanche Thorne and gravely injured her second husband, Harold Fletcher-Munro. Barrington had been positive that Fletcher-Munro drove Barrington’s friend Mark Thorne to financial ruin and suicide so he could marry Blanche. Rutledge starts out by investigating Barrington’s friends, including his lawyer and estate agent, both of whom have known him for years. When each refuses to confirm or deny that he’s still alive, Rutledge begins to consider the possibility that Mark Thorne did not commit suicide but was murdered by one of the several men who wanted Blanche. Conversations with friends and relatives of the parties involved with Blanche reveal many conflicting opinions. Each snippet Rutledge gleans leads him deeper into a complex maze, but he never considers giving up even when his own wartime demons come to the fore.
Although the pace of this intricate tale is necessarily slow, the investigation and its ultimate destination are gripping.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-267874-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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