Product Description

The new, brilliantly high-concept religious conspiracy-theory thriller from the author of 'The Righteous Men', set against the backdrop of the world's bitterest conflict. April 2003: as the Baghdad Museum of Antiquities is looted, a teenage Iraqi boy finds an ancient clay tablet in a long-forgotten vault. He takes it and runs off into the night ! Several years later, at a peace rally in Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister is about to sign a historic deal with the Palestinians. A man approaches from the crowd and seems to reach for a gun -- bodyguards shoot him dead. But in his hand was a note, one he wanted to hand to the prime minister. The shooting sparks a series of tit-for-tat killings which could derail the peace accord. Washington sends for trouble-shooter and peace negotiator Maggie Costello, after she thought she had quit the job for good. She follows a trail that takes her from Jewish settlements on the West Bank to Palestinian refugee camps, where she discovers the latest deaths are not random but have a distinct pattern. All the dead men are archaeologists and historians -- those who know the buried secrets of the ancient past. Menaced by fanatics and violent extremists on all sides, Costello is soon plunged into high-stakes international politics, the worldwide underground trade in stolen antiquities and a last, unsolved riddle of the Bible.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10127 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 567 pages

Review
Praise for 'The Righteous Men': 'The biggest challenger to Dan Brown's crown ! a highly charged, theologically accurate tale' Mirror 'Compulsive reading ! successfully blends ancient teachings with the highly charged ways of the 21st century ! bears all the hallmarks of a blockbuster' Daily Express 'The best thriller I've read in years.' Piers Morgan 'More readable than The Da Vinci Code -- the sense of menace is darker and the characters more believable' Esquire

Piers Morgan
`The best thriller I've read in years.'

Esquire

'More readable than The Da Vinci Code - the sense of menace is darker and the characters more believable'

Customer Reviews

A devine solution for a divine problem?
Sam Bourne's "The last Testament" deals with the conflict in Palestine. One can clearly see that Sam Borune is passionate about it and has first hand experience. His basic idea is quite intriguing: if the problem is about the religion, the holy land and the holy sides than maybe a solution coming down from the jointly respected "father" of Islam and Jews might provide the "divine solution". Here the quest starts. However too many have an interest in the warfare and not in peace.

The book starts very, very slowly as Sam Bourne needs a quite some time and even more pages to introduce the characters, their backgrounds and simply sets the stage. He of course tries at length to explain the conflict and the various interests the groups involved have. I simply feel that this is a bit much and a bit tiring. However finally the story takes off and there are some nice twists and interesting developments. In the end it is less about what the solution, the last testament is, what about who tries to prevent it being discovered. I am not very happy that the story is not told straight but with sudden flashbacks to the past. In short I am missing a bit real tension, fast moving events. It is suppose to be a thriller and less a book about the conflict in Palestine.

The novel is not as good as I have expected, but it is far from being a page-turner of first order. All in all I feel 3 stars is an appropriate rating.

A great page-turning read!
This is easy. If you like a really good read then ignore the bad reviews and give this a go. I finished it last night at 4am in the morning because I couldn't put it down. It does what it sets out to do. Great story with a 'this could happen' feel about it. Good idea for a story, entertaining and a page-turner. Which is what most of us are looking for with fiction. It's set against the Israeli-Palenstinian issue which had me interested from the start. I haven't read the first book but I will after this.

The British Da Vinci Code
You're pretty much warned what you're buying when you read what it says on the cover: "The Biggest Challenger to Dan Brown's Crown". Whether or not you agree with this is a matter of personal opinion, though it does at least hint at what the story's going to be about. Yes folks, it's another yarn about ancient relics and the secrets they protect. As with the DVC, there's a male/female protagonist alliance with the requisite sexual chemistry thrown in, and a host of faceless baddies whose big boss isn't revealed until near the end of the book.

But so long as you're prepared to accept that this is a fun read and has few pretentions to literary acclaim, it's actually pretty enjoyable. It's easy to sneer at the constant page-turning style of this sort of novel, but it's hard to see how a story about a missing clay tablet could really be written any other way - I mean, how long could that premise realistically be expected to hold our interest?! The tablet in question is purportedly the last will and testament of Abraham, a document of such political and religious significance that anyone who so much as hears of its existence has a nasty habit of snuffing it fairly soon afterwards. I did have a bit of a problem with the faceless goons that dispatched these unfortunates - the author doesn't really try to explain how they managed to chase their targets so effectively other than to make continued references to "bugs" and hi-tech surveillance, which sometimes feels like a cop-out.

But, as I said, it's all enjoyable enough - despite a rather strange side story about characters floating around in the online game "Second Life", which I still haven't quite figured out. You might even learn a few things of interest, which is something I also liked about Dan Brown's books (even if he did have a tendency to show off his knowledge a bit and draw some questionable conclusions). Don't expect any major dramatic finish here though... if you think about the author's available options, it's pretty clear he has nowhere much to go! Ignore this, put your brain in neutral (or maybe just 1st gear) and enjoy the ride!