From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Bourne (the pseudonym of British journalist Jonathan Freedland) follows his 2006 debut, The Righteous Men, with another Jewish-themed thriller, a clich?-ridden hodgepodge. Weeks before a closely fought U.S. presidential election, disgraced diplomat Maggie Costello comes out of self-imposed exile to mediate a final Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. When a prominent right-wing academic, Shimon Guttman, tries to reach the Israeli prime minister with an urgent message during a peace rally, security guards gun him down because they fear he was trying to assassinate the prime minister. Costello joins with Guttman's son to track down the secret his father uncovered that could radically affect the negotiations. Bourne does nothing to endear Costello to readers by revealing the reason for her earlier diplomatic disgrace. The ludicrous denouement involves a high-ranking official confessing to all his misdeeds while unknowingly being filmed on a Web cam. (May)
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From
Israel and Palestine are about to sign a historic peace treaty. When a seemingly unmotivated series of killings puts the treaty in jeopardy, U.S. government peace negotiator Maggie Costello is tasked with finding out whatβs going on. She is shocked to learn not only that the victims have been carefully chosen but also that they are being killed to protect a secret that, if it were revealed, could alter the very history of Christianity itself. The book bears a slight similarity to Kathleen McGowanβs The Book of Love (2009), aboutΒ the purported discovery of a gospel written by Jesus, but this one has stronger political overtones. The avalanche of thrillers involving religious conspiraciesβthank you, Da Vinci Codeβcontinues apace, and they range from the excellent to the execrable. Rate this one somewhere nearer the former than the latter, although many readers might find themselves, not long after they finish the book, trying in vain to keep it straight from all the others of a similar ilk. --David Pitt