16 OCT 2007. A Palestinian teenager, Bilal, is recruited by
his imam to be a suicide bomber at one of the most holy Jewish sites in
Jerusalem – the western gate in the old wall surrounding the ancient city that
had been built in the days of King Solomon. We call it the Wailing Wall. He is stopped, but manages to overpower and
kill a Jewish policeman and when escaping, falls into a shallow well. The bomb
is to be triggered by a cell phone, but in all the excitement, Bilal forgoes
the cell phone and presses the blasting cap doing minimal damage to the Wall,
but enough to put him in the hospital.
943 BC. King Solomon the Wise has taken on the task of
building the Temple in Jerusalem. One of the requests of the King is a complex
series of tunnels for water and passage. Tunnel diggers are few and proud of
their craft so when they complete a tunnel, they embed a stone engraved with
their name in the border of the tunnel’s opening so everyone will know who
built it.
16 OCT 2007. Trauma surgeon, Yael, is there to save lives,
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Palestinian, anyone. In the pre-op workup, it’s
discovered that Bilal has a very rare blood type, which the hospital is nearly
out of. The hospital blood bank searches the blood types of hospital employees
and finds a match . . . Yael. While preparing Bilal for surgery, Yael finds a
odd rock in his clenched fist. She pockets it to show her grandfather-ancient
artifacts expert. After surgery, Yael begins to dig deeper into Bilal’s history
because the coincidence of matching blood type is bugging her. She orders a DNA
test. You guessed it. While not a match, the DNA profiles are close enough for
them to have some common ancestry.
586 BC. Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II conquers southern
Judah, destroys Solomon’s temple, and exiles Israel to Babylon.
16 OCT 2007. Yael’s curiosity, and developing obsession,
takes her and the stone to her grandfather who immediately IDs it as a
priceless artifact. He and his group announce its discovery on TV bringing Yael
front and center into Israel’s consciousness. She also comes to realize that
Bilal was used and brainwashed by this imam and reaches out, against all
current conventions, to Bilal’s parents. And an American journalist wants to
tell Yael’s story to American audiences. And what is Shin Bet's (internal Israeli security charged with defending Israel's existence) interest. Especially from one of the top Shin Bet dogs who also runs with an ultra-religious Hassidic sect, Neturei Karta (who believe there should be no State of Israel until the Messiah comes). Seems like a conflict of interest.
516 BC. The Second Temple is built in Jerusalem after King
Cyrus of Persia conquers Babylon and lets the Jews return to their homeland.
Thus begins the Heritage Trilogy; two stories told in
parallel. The historical tale, as displayed in a detailed timeline, tracks Jewish
history through Old Testament times through first century AD when Rome destroys
the Second Temple. The modern day story covers a few weeks after the attempted
bombing as Yael, her grandfather, and the journalist trace what they do/don’t
know to try and get from Bilal details of how he was manipulated and how they
might save him from what portends to be multiple attempts on his life. Yael
feels a connection to Bilal and struggles to find out if and how they can be
related.
Here's my problem with a Trilogy, and this is just me . . . don't tell me it's a Trilogy at book one; save it for book 3. Knowing that going in, I'm expecting that part 1 will just sort of end with no real conclusion (Hey, Star Wars would've ended quite differently had Lucas gone in planning on doing all three from day 1. So Star Wars ended as it did because Lucas and the studio had no clue how the movie would be received). Now I've read trilogies recently that have been reviewed here: The Child 44 trilogy by Tom Rob Smith and the outstanding Finding Nouf series by Zoe Ferraris. In each case, I picked up the book and got hooked right from the start. In each case, the first book could've been an end in itself. Now I don't know if Gold and Jones started out planning to do a trilogy, but I'm guessing they did. While this book is well researched, presented, and is very polished as would be expected of writers with such a long list of awards and honors, it really just sort of ends (albeit with a bang, which is not the same as a conclusion). The opening books for the Child 44 and the Finding Nouf series could stand on their own, not needing the 2 followups. I don't think this is that way. But I do plan to continue with this series because I'm intrigued by the historical content and how the two stories eventually intersect. So, I guess I'd have to say that the authors achieved their goal of making me want to continue.
Thanks again to the good folks at Atria Books/Simon and Schuster for a copy of the book.
East Coast Don
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