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Title: Thumbs down...
Review: Had high hopes for this novel but was left with overwhelming disappointment. The story sounds worthy - a plot to blow up the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Unfortunately the book doesn't work as a thriller or as historical fiction or for that matter even as literature. The locales seemed like they would be interesting - Old City Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank - places full of fascinating biblical and recent history of which I knew very little. After reading the book still know very little. The characters were cardboard and wooden. Through 500 pages of text I generated no emotion for any of these characters. Muftis, Sufis, Haredim, Shebab...an eternal list of religions, phrases, symbols, and nomenclature that goes virtually unexplained - very frustrating. The only aspect of the book that works is the depiction of the extraordinary tensions between the religions (Jews, Muslims, and Christians) in Jerusalem and Israel. That is not enough to recommend read! ing however.
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