The Last Testament

The year is 2003. In Baghdad, American tanks rumble across the city, and a teenage looter removes from a hidden vault an ancient relic that, unknown to him, could alter the course of world history. Flash forward several years later to Jerusalem. The Israeli prime minister prepares to sign a historic and contentious peace treaty with the Palestinians. As a man approaches the prime minister with his arms raised, he is shot and killed by the prime minister's bodyguards. After the subsequent discovery that the slain man, a known opponent to the peace accord and former comrade-in-arms of the PM, was unarmed but desperately trying to get a note to him, violence erupts across the Middle East. As the violence escalates and the body counts rise on both sides of the issue, world leaders intervene to quell the bloodshed and salvage the tenuous peace accord. Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, Irish-born Maggie Costello, a skilled yet flawed negotiator, lives a dull life with a boring and controlling boyfriend. Once a rising star on the political horizon, Maggie fell from grace and tumbled to the earth following a disastrous, high-profile misstep in Africa. After she is visited in Washington by a representative from the United States government and offered the opportunity to get back into service to help get the Middle East peace talks back on track, the guilt-ridden Maggie sees it as a chance for redemption --- and to extract herself from a less-than-stellar relationship. Maggie agrees to intervene and travels to Jerusalem to mediate amid the turmoil across the explosive Middle East. After meeting with the family of the slain man and digging into his background, more deaths occur, some very close to Maggie. She becomes swept up in the situation and discovers other murders, whose primary targets for assassination are biblical scholars and archaeologists. Set on the world stage of Baghdad, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, London and Washington, D.C, THE LAST TESTAMENT is an intriguing story that has all the elements of a bestselling novel: an ancient secret of biblical proportions, high-stakes strife and subterfuge in the Middle East, a dangerous yet thrilling love interest, and the requisite, vanilla-flavored-evil-power-obsessed American bureaucrats and covert operatives out to change the world (groan). Despite the novel's anti-American political bent, I found the story engrossing; I could not put it down. While I should have been spring cleaning or doing yard work, I had the book planted in my hands. I glossed over long passages of narrative to get to the story, which is compelling. Regardless of one's political persuasion, I recommend THE LAST TESTAMENT to readers who love biblical thrillers, or any kind of page-turning thrillers, because, after all, it is a work of fiction.

This is an extraordinary book. The plot evolves around the most controversial issues in the Middle East. Although fiction, there is a whole lot of truth in this book concerning the perpetual struggle for territory and peace. Sam Bourne does a great job with factual information and the politics involved. The reader is kept in suspense with a sought after prize leaving dead bodies in its wake. The surprise ending provides a plausible solution to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. Another book, "They Plotted Revenge Against America," ends with a twist that is similar with respect to the greatest obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

A very nice thriller. It has politics, thriller, mystery, puzzles, archeology, religion .... Good medley of things to make a thriller compelling. Puzzles were not interesting, as with his other book righteous men. They are not as thought provoking as i would expect them to be.For a thriller, my opinion is that enough hints should be thrown but should be very subtle. Should make the readers think hard, and if they do they should be able to find out what it is. I find the hints in this book either are too obvious or just no hint at all. That part of it was a disappointment. It is still a good read for thriller lovers.

The election for President of the United States remains a close one with a few weeks to go. Anything could trigger victory for either side. Meanwhile scorned former diplomat Maggie Costello mediates a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. At the same time the Israeli Prime Minister appears at a peace rally to show his support to the agreement. Renowned academia right winger Shimon Guttman approaches the PM reaching into his pocket to take out a note to deliver to the PM; but Israeli security forces react instantly as they assume he grabs a weapon killing him. Fearing the incident could derail the peace talks, Costello obtains the cooperation of Guttman's son to try to learn what Shimon wanted to tell the PM. This is an intriguing thriller with ties that go back to Abraham starring a career diplomat who fell from grace a year ago with her humiliation in Africa, but has a second chance as the United States sees her as the "Closer" of hard negotiations. The story line is fast-paced as Costello and Guttman quickly realize that RIGHTEOUS MEN of America, Israel, and Palestine want control of Shimon's "secret". Although the web confession climax seems ludicrous, readers will enjoy this exciting Holy Land thriller which connects the twenty-first century feud to the Old Testament. Harriet Klausner

Sam Bourne is the pseudonym of the British journalist Jonathan Freedland who in 2002 chaired the meetings between some prominent Israelis and Palestinians who eventually produced the 2003 Geneva Accord, which was repudiated by the Israeli government and by militant Palestinians. He therefore knows something about the skills needed by mediators and is thoroughly familiar with the complexities of the region. That experience has stood him in good stead. The central character is an American-appointed mediator Maggie Costello; and although the author rightly claims that his book is `entirely a work of fiction', the historical background of the events until shortly before his story starts is wholly accurate, (and I beg to doubt his other disclaimer, that any resemblance to `localities' is entirely coincidental. A small example among many: he has two characters meeting at the Restobar Café, which was known as the Moment Café before it was bombed in 2002. He shows that he knows his Israeli `localities'.) The book begins with a superb account of the looting of Baghdad's National Museum of Antiquities (2003), into which the author has introduced one of his fictional characters; and antiquities are the theme that forms the backbone of the novel. In the context of the Arab-Israeli dispute, arguments between Arabs and Israelis about who were the earliest inhabitants of the land play an important part, and every archaeological discovery is therefore loaded with politics. Against this credible background Bourne invents a fast-paced and intricately plotted story, of people who want the peace process to succeed and others who want it to fail, of double-dealings, of computer wizardry, and of murders, with the action spilling beyond the borders of Israel-Palestine - to the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Iraq, Jordan - all in the best tradition of thrillers: short chapters, almost all ending with something dramatic. One of these ancient artefacts in particular acts like a fatal curse on practically everyone - Arab or Israeli - who has, however remotely, had anything to do with it. Each murder brings the peace process closer to total break-down; so Maggie, charged with preventing this from happening, thinks she has to discover what has linked all these murders together. Needless to say, her role as detective puts her, more than once, in terrible danger, too. The ending has hope triumphing over experience, alas - at least so far!