THE BLUE WIDOWS
by Jon Land
Sixth in the hauntingly irresolvable Arab/Israeli thriller series featuring Palestinian-American Police Inspector Ben Kamal and his beloved Israeli Chief Inspector Danielle Barnea, who in novel after novel meet and part, meet and part, with Danielle having a miscarriage (sired not by Ben), then a fatally flawed fetus sired by Ben, and then turning from Ben with the unbearable foresight that a child by her and Ben would be crushed by religious conflict. In the last installment, Blood Diamonds (2002), Danielle and Ben looked lastingly parted when she was charged with killing her superior officer and jailed in Jerusalem. But off they went to fight the Dragon Lady and her fearful Black Death. Now Danielle has been promoted to head the National Police while Ben is tied to a security firm out of Boston—he feels more American these days. As if the Black Death, which might have wiped out half of mankind, weren’t enough, the lovers now face a fatwa lifted from a charred manuscript that prophesizes The End of All Things. And replacing the Dragon Lady is Saudi Arabian billionairess Layla Aziz Rahani, whose exuberantly horrible pharmaceutical plot against Americans falls short of imploding the Solar System but—for victims—not greatly.
No rest for the conflicted.