Murder mystery meets conspiracy theory meets theological commentary.
A kitchen sink of arcane elements—twisted biblical prophecy, Oedipal complex, computer-hacker sabotage—together with such thriller staples as kidnapping and serial-killer psychodynamics makes this one messy whodunit. But it’s a riveting mess.
The concept’s hot: One-by-one, three dozen are targeted for killing, each corpse to be laid out carefully, swaddled in a purple blanket. Bourne, a London journalist aka Jonathan Freedland (Jacob’s Gift, 2005, etc.), cribs from Dan Brown’s well-thumbed manual on mystic atmosphere, and creates a nefarious sect, the Church of the Reborn Jesus, who madly masterminds the murders. Those homicides are head-scratchers for the police—among them, a Manhattan pimp with a heart of gold, a Wild West, right-wing militiaman who’s also a kidney donor, and a Baptist pastor in Brazil. Will, a New York Times reporter, is drawn into this blood-spattered web when his pregnant wife, Beth, is abducted by Hasidic zealots. What connects Beth’s disappearance and the dead men, dropping nearly daily like dominos? Even Will’s adored dad, a federal judge, can’t seem to aid his son, who turns to a Jewish ex-girlfriend to penetrate the heart of Hasidism. Together, they decode the Torah passages the kidnappers send and negotiate a maze that leads, shockingly, back to Will’s own father. Turns out he’s none other than “The Apostle,” high priest of the Reborn Jesus cult. Their mission? To bring the End Times, the Rapture, by knocking off the 36 righteous men Jewish tradition maintains are necessary, at any given time, to keep life on this dark planet alive. Turns out, too, that the Hasidic perps are actually good guys, and the Reborn vicious anti-Semites, adherents of the ultra-fundamentalist doctrine of “replacement theology”—that the Jews, as chosen people, have been replaced by Christians.
Murder mystery meets conspiracy theory meets theological commentary.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-113829-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
Uninspiring story with a not-so-hidden agenda.
Have yourself a conservative little Christmas.
Vaughan, a prolific Christian author of manly historicals and military novels under various pseudonyms (including female ones, for his category romances), takes up several ultra-right and back-to-the-Bible causes in this low-key holiday tale. Should the Inuits and just plain white folks of Point Hope, Alaska (which might sit atop undiscovered reserves of oil), believe the scaremongering of Clay Berber, an untrustworthy, tree-hugging, pointy-headed activist who once fought to have the Ten Commandments removed from a county courthouse? Our hero, Galen Scobey, steps up to the podium with the real facts: among them, the infamous Valdez oil tanker disaster had no lasting measurable effects upon Alaskan wildlife or environment. Galen, a single father to young Nels, is still haunted by the memory of his dead but much-loved wife Julia, who loved Christmas. And he’s troubled by his own responsibility for an oil-search accident that killed two New Guinea natives several years ago. Heck, that pretty little teacher, Ellie Springer, isn’t going to charm him out of his holiday blues by holding a Christmas pageant at the Tikigaq school. And hasn’t she ever heard of the separation of church and state? He won’t let Nels perform. The dispute ends up in court, where a muddled defense avers that since the government is supporting “faith in atheism” by upholding the law, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating a religious holiday in a publicly funded school system. What a miracle: the befuddled judge agrees in an unlikely ruling on behalf of the pageant. What a hero: Galen, lost in a storm on the tundra, follows a brilliant star back to Point Hope and joins the rejoicing townsfolk.
Uninspiring story with a not-so-hidden agenda.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-765-30947-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cohesively combines the epic and personal sense of sorrow and nostalgia rooted in home.
A warmly portrayed, densely researched fictional history of a scattered Jewish clan migrated to Jerusalem.
In alternating chapters, English-born biblical scholar and first-novelist Yellin brings the various threads of the Sepher family together through the story of the so-called Sepher Codex—a priceless 13th-century copy of the Five Books of Moses—supposedly smuggled into the Holy Land by great-grandfather Shalom and hidden in the family home’s “genizah,” or attic, for decades. In the present, Shulamit Sepher, a 40-year-old unmarried English lecturer in biblical studies, has returned to Jerusalem to say goodbye to her family home at Kiriat Shoshan, run by aged Uncle Saul, before the house is torn down in the name of progress. She has spent many memorable summers in that house (“a visiting child, pale and alien in [her] English skin”), accompanied by her brother Reuben, now an echt Englishman who, unlike her, does look back. Uncle Saul, however, assumes Shulamit has come for the Codex, and soon she learns how precious it is—when she’s followed by a persistent, religious, and not unattractive fanatic who claims he’s from the tribe of Dan and commissioned with the task of returning the Codex to its rightful owner. Meanwhile, great-grandfather Shalom’s ancient history unravels: a corrector of scrolls by profession, he first leaves his home (and wife) in Vilna for Jerusalem in 1861, starts a new family, then eventually sets off for Babylon on a long search for the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. His story, with the history of the Codex, makes for a fascinating, labyrinthine journey, joined to the modern-day suspense surrounding the treasure’s mysterious whereabouts. In the end, it all encapsulates in one family the history of the Jews from Moses’ reception of the Torah on Mt. Sinai on through the Diaspora, culminating in the forging of the Zionist state—all via the pious adherence to the holy books.
Cohesively combines the epic and personal sense of sorrow and nostalgia rooted in home.Pub Date: April 15, 2005
ISBN: 1-59264-085-0
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Toby Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2005
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