for information about Kobinski, against his wishes. When he finally realizes how much he loves her, she will do anything for him. A mother of three, she is an opposite of Jill, who doesn't care for children or family, but the two become friends. Yosef Kobinski-- Physicist, Rabbi and Kabbalist. Imprisoned in Auschwitz during World War II. Several eyewitnesses testified that he and his deadly enemy, a Nazi camp guard, disappeared in a flash of light when many prisoners managed an escape from the concentration camp. Becomes semi-divine Lord of the sentient but violent and cannibalistic denizens of the adjacent-universe, heavy-gravity planet called Fiori. Themes One-Minus-One / One-Plus-One Wave - The equation for good and evil; more specifically, a wave that, when it overlaps with the gravity waves of matter and probability waves, works to alleviate negative happenings (troughs) and to blunt positive happenings (peaks). Good and evil - Yosef Kobinski theorizes that the two are balanced in the Fifth Dimension and that they rule the multiverse in all places in which sentient life and morality can be understood by humans who visit there. Many-worlds interpretation - Jill Talcott, the physicist, is the last of the characters to believe that parallel worlds might exist; she learns otherwise when she and Nate (and the other main characters) use Kabbalistic physics to be sent to a parallel, futuristic planet. Kabbalah - An important set of esoteric teachings which drives some of the Jews in the novel and which eventually influences or affects all of the main characters. Unrequited love - Hannah Handalman loves her husband, who is too self-obsessed to understand her needs; Nate loves Jill, who is terrified of intimacy, although at times she expresses a returned lust. Cryptanalysis - Rabbi Aharon Handalman finds worrying evidence in the Torah that Kobinski might have created a terrifying new weapon; Calder Farris hopes very much to find that Kobinski did create one which could destroy all enemies of the United States. Literary significance and reception Jeff Zaleski gave this novel a mixed review for Publishers Weekly: "Jensen is on surer ground describing Kabbalah and Holocaust history than she is plotting supernatural adventures, which unravel by the end. But she gets points for the innovative, multifaceted story". Frieda Murray was more positive in her review for Booklist: "The book plays out as it has begun, in rather standard thriller fashion. Jensen keeps it moving,