Ben Kamal hasn't investigated a case since his last assignment with Danielle. But missing children in his native West Bank rekindle his interest in his career, reminding him of his own lost children.

Danielle Barnea had put her career on hold as well, until a personal tragedy left her with nothing else to turn to. Her first case is the apparently random murder of a jerusalem shopkeeper who was also one of Israel's earliest war heroes.

What Ben and Danielle don't know, can't know, is that their separate investigations are linked by a secret borne of the blood that forged a nation. As decades of white slavery around the world bear their bitter fruit, the secret has the power to topple governments and explode the Middle East into a maelstrom of chaos and destruction.

To stop history from being rewritten, Ben and Danielle must follow a dangerous path to a truth that no one wants revealed and that someone has already killed to keep hidden behind the Pillars of Solomon.

In his 20th book, Land offers a bracing sequel to the well-received thriller, The Walls of Jericho, once again featuring Palestinian detective and ex-Detroit cop Ben Kamal, and Jerusalem police inspector Danielle Barnea, Ben's old flame. Delving into the disappearance of the 12-year-old daughter of a Jericho woman, Ben is warned of a planned suicide bombing in Tel Aviv's Atarim Square. With phone service disrupted, he dashes off, unaware that he is on a collision course with Danielle, who is investigating the slaying of a 70-year-old Jerusalem shopkeeper. Soon it becomes apparent that the two cases are connected, the common denominator involving a group of four friends who, as young men in 1947, made a pact of friendship rooted in their struggle to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, but with unforeseen and sinister complications. Flashback vignettes illuminate the action with historic insights into the infamous bloody conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and the narrative evolves into a minor travelogue of the region, featuring side trips to Hebron, Petra, Haifa, Athens and on to the U.S. As the multilayered plot unfolds, a mega-million-dollar conspiracy to supply a worldwide white slavery trade with children looms central, but a darker secret, a Moses-like allegorical twist, lurks beneath the surface. The pivotal piece of evidence revealing this secret is a personal journal, inexplicably written in the third person; this crucial detail baffles, and the final 100 pages disappoint, as the narrative wobbles toward a summarizing, expository conclusion. All loose ends are tied up rather methodically, but there is some satisfaction in finding a logical place for every piece of the puzzle, especially given the vivid and disturbing chaos of Land's modern Mideastern setting.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Star-crossed superheroes in a standard suspenser set in the Middle East. He's a famous Palestinian detective. She's a great Israeli detective. Previously (in The Walls of Jericho, 1997), they were part of a joint Arab-Israeli effort to identify and track down a savage serial killer. They caught himand the love bug, too. But Arabs and Israelis, these days, mix about as well as Capulets and Montagues, and handsome Ben Kamal can adore beauteous Daniella Barnea only from afar. That is, until circumstances force them to team up again, this time to quash an international white slavery racket. But that's not how it looked at the outset. Then, Ben thought he was investigating a simple kidnaping, and Daniella thought she was pursuing the murderer of an ordinary Jewish shopkeeper. It isn't until her higher-ups in the Israeli National Police take to sabotaging her efforts, while pretending to aid and abet them, that Daniella sniffs the putrid odor of cover-up and conspiracy. Ben's realization is connected to the offing of his close friend and hot-shot reporter Zaid Jabral, who was onto a ripsnorter of a story that could besmirch reputations, even topple governments, as hed told Ben. Done in before he can reveal more, he now materializes as a friendly ghost from time to time, offering spirited advice. It's unlikely that veteran suspense readers will be surprised when the two investigations turn out to be linked. Before Ben and Daniella can save the world, however, the obligatory filling of body bags has to take place. Best in the early scenes, when those tortuous Arab-Israeli conflicts get interesting. But Land (Dead Simple, 1998, etc.), like so many other authors of big fat thrillers, is flummoxed by the problems of the middle, which sags and drags. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.