New author Daniel Levin has scored a huge hit with his masterful debut, THE LAST EMBER (Riverhead Books). This hardcover went on sale August 6, 2009, and I started reading it right away. I can't imagine a more thoroughly researched or excellently presented edict about religious archaeological terrorism than this fast-paced literary thriller. It captured my attention with its degree of realism, as well as educating me beyond expectation. Not since THE DA VINCI CODE have I become so absorbed in a work of fiction based on ancient religious facts. As you can guess, I recommend this book highly.
Jonathan Marcus, a young American lawyer and a former
doctoral student in classics, has become a sought-after
commodity among less-scrupulous antiquities dealers. But
when he is summoned to Rome to examine a clientβs fragment
of an ancient stone map, he stumbles across a startling
secret. The discovery reveals not only an ancient
intelligence operation to protect an artifact hidden for
2000 years, but also a ruthless modern plot to destroy all
trace of it by a mysterious radical bent on erasing all
remnants of Jewish and Christian presence from the Temple
Mount.
With a cutting-edge plot as intricately layered as the
ancient sites it explores, The Last Ember is a riveting
tale spanning the high-stakes worlds of archaeology,
politics, and terrorism, in its portrayal of the modern
struggle to define β and redefineβ history itself.
No excerpt available.
© 2003-2026