CRY FOR JERUSALEM

In this historical novel set in the first century, the lives of four unlikely friends are threatened by the gathering war between Emperor Nero’s Roman Empire and the Jewish population in Jerusalem.

Nero has nearly bankrupted Rome as a consequence of relentless prodigality, diminishing the empire’s power and sending many of its provinces into mutinous discontent. His devious plan is to manufacture a war with the restive Jewish population—especially in Jerusalem—in order to plunder its treasury, and he’s prepared to deceive his own generals in order to accomplish this. In this second installment of a four-volume series, Sanford deftly depicts the historical conflict by chronicling four intersecting lives. All of these characters meet by sheer happenstance but form a potent bond: Cleopatra; Nicanor, a Roman centurion; Sayid, a Roman solider in Nicanor’s legion; and Yosef, the military commander in charge of Galilee. Nicanor participates in a major loss against the rebels at Beth Horon under the leadership of Cestius Gallus, who entrusts the centurion with a packet of documents substantiating his suspicions that his campaign was purposely sabotaged by his own advisers. Meanwhile, Yosef tries to unite Galilee to oppose the inevitable Roman invasion but is despondent that his own people visit so much violence upon themselves, an inner conflict subtly portrayed by the author: “Yosef did not know who he hated more for what had happened—the Romans that had pushed the situation in Judea to this point or his own people who, for selfish reasons, had killed the innocent or let them be killed. They were driving them all toward inevitable death and destruction.” Sanford’s historical rigor is impressive and his account of the age’s troubles, nimbly nuanced, unburdened by any calcified moral strictures. One caveat: For readers unfamiliar with the series opener, this will be a difficult (though not impossible) novel to follow. But the sequel is a captivating treat for those who enjoyed the book’s predecessor.

A thrilling blend of powerful emotional drama and meticulous historical scholarship.