A page-turner illustrating the horrifying consequences of becoming embroiled in the American legal system, slowed by far too...
An upper-middle-class Jewish family is thrown into turmoil when a father is accused of abetting terrorism.
Things couldn’t be more idyllic for the Samuels clan of Cambridge, Mass. Abigail is exulting in the pleasurable planning of a gala engagement party for daughter Kayla and future son-in-law Seth, two Harvard Law students with bright futures. But why is the caterer giving her the fish-eye? The news has hit the Internet: Suddenly the whole world knows that Abigail’s husband, Adam, a prominent CPA, has just been led, in handcuffs, from his Boston office by the FBI. The charge arose from the fact that Adam had steered some high-profile clients, including a former ghetto dweller turned celebrity entrepreneur, toward a hedge fund that, unbeknownst to Adam despite due diligence, financed terrorist operations. Seth, a controlling sort who pressures Kayla into straightening her hair and wearing pinstripes in order to better her chances with law-firm recruiters, insists that she distance herself from her father to avoid tainting her career prospects. Adam’s formerly close friends and even his rabbi shun him. On bail, awaiting trial and facing the loss of his hard-won reputation and prosperity, Adam grows increasingly despondent and rebuffs Abigail’s efforts to comfort him. Kayla impulsively hops a plane to Israel, and winds up on an archeological dig near the Dead Sea. There, amid a group of free spirits called the Talmidim, she lives off the land and studies with a charismatic guru, Rav Natan. She’s drawn to Daniel, an Israeli surgeon whose family was killed by a suicide bomber. Ironically, Daniel, with his contacts in Israeli army intelligence, may be the Samuels family’s salvation. Adam, alarmed by Kayla’s defection from the mainstream, sends both Abigail and Seth after her. Both will then experience epiphanies of their own.
A page-turner illustrating the horrifying consequences of becoming embroiled in the American legal system, slowed by far too many weighty passages of authorial comment about the sad state of morals today.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-57017-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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