The Assistant: A Novel

Book Description

Introduction by Jonathan Rosen

Bernard Malamud’s second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who “wants better” for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant. But there are complications: Frank, whose reaction to Jews is ambivalent, falls in love with Helen Bober; at the same time he begins to steal from the store.

Like Malamud’s best stories, this novel unerringly evokes an immigrant world of cramped circumstances and great expectations. Malamud defined the immigrant experience in a way that has proven vital for several generations of writers.

Customer Reviews:

intriguing story but a bit too melodramatic.......2007-10-08

'The Assistant' is clearly an interesting read. Set in 1950s New York City, a young gentile enters the lives of elder Jewish shopkeepers and their daughter. The gentile is a tormented soul with questionable morals. The shopkeepers distrust him, especially around their daughter. But this gentile ultimately affects their lives in profound and everlasting ways. Certainly 'The Assistant' is rich in dialog, characterizations and in capturing anti-semetic feelings during that era. However the author seemed to have overreached in making the ending to the story to be something profound, almost of biblical proportions. For me it was too contrived. But this was only a slight distraction from an otherwise pleasant reading experience.

Bottom line: an interesting and moving drama that teeters on melodrama. Strongly recommended nonetheless.

Assistant is spelled with the letters S.A.I.N.T. [T].......2007-06-08

The word "Assistant" includes the letters S.A.I.N.T And, the person who is the assistant herein well reflects Christianity's concepts of sainthood or someone who is "born again."

A simple ground floor grocery man, Morris Bober, lives in a simple second story flat with his wife, Ida, and beautiful 23-year old daughter, Helen. Business is worsening, and while it falls, he meets Frank Alpine - an Italian goyim.

Frank works for peanuts for Morris and manages to raise the business from its ashes. Things begin to look good - but Ida's fears of a goyim living so close to her very Jewish daughter are well deserved.

Frank is not a saint by birth. Frank is an orphan who lived an abusive childhood, and he merely wants to be loved. He practically enslaves himself for Morris - partly to be loved and partly for penance. But, whatever his evil ways were, he is almost devoid of the same after meeting Morris. Malamud probably intentionally chose Frank to be Italian - and incorporates what the Roman Catholic Church associates as "being born again": baptism. Working in the grocery for Morris is Frank's baptism.

What makes this book so fascinating is the concept of rebirth after criminality. Really, criminality's born again Christianity became vogue a decade or decades after publication of this novel (1957) with the 1976 book written by Charles Colson of Watergate fame.

This insightful work on Christianity becomes even more fascinating when one considers the source - a young Jewish writer who grew up in a delicatessen with an impoverished father who is much like Morris. And, the greatest part of the rebirth arises in the end when Italian Frank - learning about Judaism - converts. He is a born again Jew.

The grocery is commonly referred to as a prison which confined Morris and later confines Frank. But, from that prison others benefit. And, most particularly we learn of the goodness of those imprisoned in poverty - something espoused by Saint Francis who is mentioned numerous times in this book.

This is a great story. This is a great book with many layers. And, this book could be assigned to religion students as well as the obvious English or literature students.

A good Interesting Novel!.......2007-04-12

These are some of the Positive and negative aspects of this book. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud.

A positive aspect of the book is that it shows the true life in this novel. Many people who read this book can relate to the events that occured in this book, whether you own a store,or you've been heartbroken because of one's actions.

Another positive aspect about the book is that it has detail of every event that occured in this novel. I understood everything entirely as the description of the characters, and the plot was very nicely written.

A negative aspect about the book is that Frank can't be trusted at anytime. He just makes wrong and right decisions. Making right decisions as in saving many people in the book and poor decisions as in the actions he made towards Helen.

Another negative aspect about the book is it's ending. I liked the book entirely but i was expecting a better ending. It's an interesting novel but i was expecting something more at the end but the book concluded nicely.

I feel that many people should read and enjoy this book and get their own thoughts and ideas about it.

How do people respond to grace.......2007-03-23

Morris Bober struggles to keep his independent grocery store open, as new competition drains what little business comes from his run down neighborhood. His troubles are relieved by the arrival of Frank Alpine, a down-and-outer who decides to make good by working for nothing at his store. The blessing of Frank's presence is complicated by his past and by his interest in Morris' daughter, Helen Bober.

That would summarize the basic plot of the novel. Yet to say that this is what the book is about would miss most of this book's underlying meaning.

To the extent that I can explain it, Bernard Malamud has given Morris some Christ-like qualities. The rest of the characters, in turn, demonstrate some of the responses that people make to the life of Christ.

I say "to the extent that I can explain it," because I am not a professor, or even a student of theology. I think this is one of those books that would reveal a lot through a second reading, or through the guidance of a professor. My guess is that Frank Alpine, in the context of the New Testament, could be seen as one of the Pharisees. He is always trying to do the right thing -- trying achieve salvation through austere living and devoted work.

I feel less certain who Helen represents. I hesitate to speculate here. Nevertheless, I hope that anyone reading this would not take that for a sign that this is not a stimulating novel. I found that the plot compelled me to pick it up. My sense of its meaning, in turn, grew when the book reached its resolution.

I suppose many already realize that Bernard Malamud is Jewish. I think that makes the symbolism of this novel even more interesting. Malamud's writing is careful, in the best tradition of realism.

I think this book would be incredible for book clubs.

an american classic, 50 years on.......2006-11-25

I've read this book 50 years after it was published, but unlike some novels, it's not dated at all. Not only does it work well as a period piece, but its portrayal of people, of the body blows dealt by life, and of the way this country doesn't live up to what immigrants think they are going to find is relevant today. I felt the publisher's blurb on the edition I had and some other reviews may have oversimplified or misstated some of the characters. Frank is not some remorseless sociopath who walks in to rob, rape and pillage. Frank is a complex person who for much of the book is caught in a vicious circle of doing wrong, experiencing tremendous pain of conscience, determining to make right what he has done, getting into difficulties, and doing wrong again to get out of a jam. At one point, he is described as a man of morality, and there is hope for him. He's not a thug; that would be Ward, the police officer's son who returns to the neighborhood to commit crimes. Helen takes a long time to realize that she isn't entirely blameless in her involvement with Frank. Whether a rape takes place is somewhat ambiguous, but Helen believes this is what happened. Helen is caught in the trap of waiting for nothing, in her own words. Frank looks better and better given the other choices she has. Morris, Helen's father, looks at his mom and pop grocery store as a prison. Morris is a victim, yet if he had made a little effort to help himself, things may have turned out better for him. He is a terrible businessman, he makes foolish decisions about his health, and he is taken advantage of by everyone. The whole family is caught in a trap by the failing store and grinding poverty that has them in a downward spiral. Morris and Ida are Russian Jews who came to America with the hope of finding something better. It appears the only thing that is better is the absence of pogroms. The people in this book are Italians, Germans, Poles, Norwegians. Today the immigrants come from different countries, but I'm willing to bet that quite a few have the same experience in this country that Morris's family did. Today it may even be worse. Aside from the characters, the author gives a wonderful description of a 1950s Brooklyn neighborhood. The reader can picture everything in such detail it's like watching a DVD in one's head. A book like this will always hold up, and I'm anxious to read more of the author's work. Finally, this novel made TIME magazine's Top 100 novels last year, which is why I picked it up.

Average customer rating:

Let Down
Sad but true
Not nearly as good as expected
A grin from beginning to end
Sugarland Shuffle

The Assistants: A Novel
Robin Lynn Williams
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0060723866
Release Date: 2004-06-29

Amazon.com

Wanted: Young, photogenic writer with one year of experience as an assistant to Hollywood power players to pen easy-reading, summer novel about same.

If the publisher had run this advertisement to find an author for Robin Lynn Williams' debut novel, The Assistants, they would have gotten all that and an innovator to boot. Rather than content herself with the established axiom of Assistant Lit--one lowly assistant, one mean boss--she presents five attractive young nobodies, each taking turns with the first-person point-of-view. (The book even includes pictures of models portraying the protagonists so go ahead and check your imagination at the front cover!) Do you like the narrative voice to be wise and irreverent? If so, you'll enjoy reading about Griffin, the agent's assistant, who struggles to prove that he--not his employer--is the one who knows how to unearth rare talents. Or maybe you'll prefer the saccharine aftertaste of Rachel, a Texas belle who slaves for a has-been sitcom actress. Or the sex-obsessed Jeb, who craves the love of a good woman--his boss's wife. The team is rounded out by Michaela, the wanna-be actress, who logs plenty of time on the casting couch, and Kecia, an actor's assistant, who is kept busy battling both her weight and the IRS.

The Assistants is diverting enough to keep readers entertained, just check your expectations at the door. Writers of Assistant Lit have mastered the art of telling it like it is when it comes to thankless office work, but not when it comes to endings. In real life, the bosses usually win. --Leah Weathersby

Book Description

In this wicked, laugh-out-loud debut novel, five miserable souls struggle to make their mark on Hollywood, the city of the soulless. Rachel Burt, starry-eyed and clueless, has left behind tiny Sugarland, Texas, and her position as Starbucks employee of the month, to pursue her dreams of becoming a screenwriter. The madness begins when she eagerly accepts a position as assistant to Victoria Rush, an aging television diva with "a little pill-popping problem that two tours of duty at Betty Ford couldn't remedy."

Rachel learns the ropes from Michaela Marsh, a never-say-die, plastic-surgery perfect "midget Tai-Bo Barbie." Michaela has spent years (and years and years: she is -- gasp -- over thirty!) trying to break into Hollywood, which has given her a healthy respect for the casting couch; but even sleeping with her slimy agent hasn't landed her a meaty role, and the last pilot she almost got, some ten years ago, went to that little nobody, Lisa Kudrow.

Jeb, who operates on pure rage, has been fired from more assistant jobs than he cares to count, and he currently teeters on the edge of insanity under Randall Blume, one of the sleaziest agents in Hollywood.

Kecia Christy, a no-nonsense Pisces pining for love and addicted to Krispy Kremes, works for Travis Trask, the hottest teen heartthrob since "that other white boy, Leo." More interested in smoking prizewinning pot with his bonehead buddies than in his next movie, Travis is always looking for the next good party -- until his ex-con brother shows up at the front door.

Griffin's intelligence and ambition fail to shield him from endless humiliation at the hands of Johnny Treadway, a crass A-list manager with pec and cheek implants and a perpetual tan, courtesy of the Tropical Rays tanning bed he keeps in his office. Johnny takes all the credit while Griffin does all the real work, and Griffin has begun to suspect that selling his soul might not be worth that overdue promotion after all.

Once a week, Rachel, Michaela, Jeb, Griffin, and Kecia meet at a dark, unhip watering hole to commiserate. Soon enough, however, the system spits them out, and they must learn to survive through sheer determination, hard-won industry savvy, and luck.

At turns hilarious, poignant, and sinfully gossipy, The Assistants will keep you glued to your seat until the final page is turned.

Customer Reviews:

Let Down.......2007-05-13

I guess I'm the only one who agrees with the opinion that this book was a disappointment. I read the short review by a favorite author of mine, Lauren Weisberger, on the back of the book and expected to thoroughly enjoy it. That's not exactly what happened. The beginning of the book was promising with the introduction of all of the characters but they never really developed.

I was especially disappointed by the ending. Beside it feeling rushed, it was clear that the story took off when Rachel was introduced but it wasn't Rachel that explained how everyone ended up. Among the other upsets were the grammatical errors, overuse of Microsoft Word-like insertion of synonyms, random camera/direction notes, and overall lack of detail.

Also, the comparison of this book to Office Space is laughable.

Sad but true.......2006-06-14

Being a former Hollywood assistant myself i was curious to read Robin Williams' take on the subject...it's dead on, unfortunately for the assistants and fortunately for the readers. I caught myself laughing at loud several times remembering similar situations i found myself in.
Great summer read.

Not nearly as good as expected.......2006-06-07

I had seen so many glowing reviews about this book that I was really excited to read it for myself. Boy, was I disappointed. The writing is not nearly as biting and quick witted as I had expected. In fact, I think that the writing is quite poor. The author relies on one-dimensional caricatures (the struggling actress willing to sleep her way to a break-through role, the naive girl from the small town moving to the big city, the chauvinist jerk only interested in sex, etc.) She tries to give them different voices as they narrate their own stories, but by the end of the novel (after they have gone through unrealistic "character development") they all end up sounding alike. And I definitely did not care what happened to them, as most of them are just as bad as the awful people that they work for as assistants.
Also, this may be a bit picky, but it bothered me. I had a hard time getting past the unnecessary and insensitive references to Jon Benet, Columbine, the murder of Nicole Simpson, etc. They are supposed to be up-to-date fleeting references to pop culture or what not, but they just stuck out to me as low.
It definitely is a quick read, I read it in one afternoon, but don't expect much depth. I would not recommend this book to my friends. It does not live up to expectations.

A grin from beginning to end.......2006-05-03

"The Assistants", a novel by Robin Lynn Williams, is a hoot from beginning to end. The characters are well delineated and each appealing in his own way. The author apparently had a bad experience with Hollywood agents, because she depicts them as stupid, greedy, and devious incompetents who depend entirely on the neediness of their clients and employees for their success. Especially amusing is Rachel, a na??f who hails from a small suburb of Houston and believes that all people are basically good and honest. I have to question whether good fortune would smile on such a person quite as broadly as it does on Rachel, but it's fun to pretend.

Sugarland Shuffle.......2006-03-15

This is a really cute book. A fun read. However, one thing drove me absolutely crazy. One character, Rachel, is from Sugarland, Texas. The author makes it sound like a dinky little town in the middle of nowhere. For those of you who don't know, Sugarland is a city on the outskirts of Houston. It is a busy little metropolis. Nothing backwards about it. It boasts gated communities, nice malls, movie theaters...picture a mini-Houston. I wish the author had done a little more research when choosing Sugarland as Rachel's hometown. Other than that little snafu it's a really cute story.

The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook)

Average customer rating:

An Antidote for Notes from Underground
"Curse those bacon-and-sausage eaters!"

The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook)
Robert Walser
Manufacturer: New Directions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Political | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0811215903

Book Description

This classic by Robert Walser—who was admired greatly by Kafka, Musil, Walter Benjamin, and W. G. Sebald—is now presented in English for the very first time.

Robert Walser is an overwhelmingly original author with many ardent fans: J. M. Coetzee ("dazzling"), Guy Davenport ("a very special kind of whimsical-serious-deep writer"), and Hermann Hesse ("If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place"). Charged with compassion, and an utterly unique radiance of vision, Walser is as Susan Sontag exclaimed "a truly wonderful, heart-breaking writer."

The Assistant is his breathtaking 1908 novel, translated by award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky. Joseph, hired to become an inventor's new assistant, arrives one rainy Monday morning at Technical Engineer Karl Tobler's splendid hilltop villa: he is at once pleased and terribly worried, a state soon followed by even stickier psychological complexities. He enjoys the beautiful view over Lake Zurich, in the company of the proud wife, Frau Tobler, and the delicious savory meals. But does he deserve any of these pleasures? The Assistant chronicles Joseph's inner life of cascading emotions as he attempts, both frantically and light-heartedly, to help the Tobler household, even as it slides toward financial ruin. Tobler demands of Joseph, "Do you have your wits about you?!" And Joseph's wits are in fact all around him, trembling like leaves in the breeze—he is full of exuberance and despair, all the raptures and panics of a person "drowning in obedience."

Customer Reviews:

An Antidote for Notes from Underground.......2007-09-29

Hermann Hesse famously remarked "If (Walser) had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place." The Assistant does more to explain that opinion than any of Walser's other books. He was always trying to give a voice to the humble, the self-effacing, the marginalized. But as he aged he came to focus more and more on vignettes, and these seem to have gotten odder and odder. In this early work, he gives a full-length portrait of people on the edge, of society and of financial ruin.

I approached the novel with some uneasiness, wondering whether the delicate, fragile magic his briefer pieces demonstrate could sustain such a long (for him) work (295 pages). I'm happy to report that it does, and beautifully. There are short sections, like the hero's recollection of a childhood outing, that could very well have stood alone but are woven into the texture of the narrative flawlessly.

The outing he recalls was a perfectly beautiful and happy experience, and some fleeting references make it clear that this was far from normal for his home life. It's a delicate moment that brings the hero's life into sharp, individual relief, but also makes clear that his life is part of the same heartbreaking continuum as that of the doomed family he's temporarily become a part of.

I recently tried to re-read Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground (Notes from a Hole in the Floor, really; excuse the picked nit) and found I no longer have a taste for it. Dostoyevsky's satire is fiercely focused on the vile and pathological. Walser's hero is a far sadder figure, a nobody with drastically limited prospects. He not only knows that and has accepted it, he embraces it. He has his occasional bursts of meanness or ill-temper, but so do we all.

Jakob von Gunten is a shorter book, and perhaps more representative of Walser's irreduceable and irreplaceable oddness. But The Assistant is the book I'd recommend someone new to Walser to start with.

"Curse those bacon-and-sausage eaters!".......2007-08-18

Joseph Marti, a young man between jobs, gains the position of Assistant at the villa & workplace of Carl Tobler, a struggling, possibly-cockamamie inventor. Despite Tobler's professional struggle and lack of investors, he puts no brakes on his expensive joie de vivre. Joseph ends up smoking cheroots, sending away creditors, taking hilarious dictations, alternately entertaining and vexing Tobler's wife, and enjoying the Tobler's bountiful lunches and dinners:

"Sit down. Wherever you like, it doesn't matter. And eat until you've had your fill. Here's the bread. Cut yourself as much as you'd like. There's no need to hold back. Go ahead and pour yourself cups--there's plenty of coffee. And here is butter. The butter, as you see, is here to be eaten. And here's some jam, should you happen to be a jam-lover. Would you like some fried potatoes as well?"

Hospitality is practically stuffed in his face, though he refuses to believe that he ever earns it. A good stuffing of hospitality at the dinner table is a recurring theme in Walser's work.

The Tobler family slides into dispossession. Walser captures the impendingness of the situation by describing the characters and their interactions over the course of about a year. The letter from Tobler's mother coldly punctuates the end of the story with a vicious moral.

What shines to me isn't the plot (does anyone read for plot?) but the details of Joseph's inner turmoil, its occasional outlets, the THEATRICAL MOOD SWINGS OF TOBLER, and Walser's unbelievably fresh and insightful descriptions of simple events like going for a swim in a lake or waking up in bed on a Sunday morning. His pre-kafkaesque description of a credit auditor's lurking around the villa is a classic passage here, too. (It rivals or surpasses the super-natur domestic fantasy of Marquez's Solitude and the bureacratic goons of Kafka, and pre-dates both).

A sudden appearance of a military prison episode forms one of Walser's best ensemble scenes. ("Slap the Ham")

Joseph is the typical Walserian hero: he's timid, doubtful of his own importance, rags on himself out loud in high-style, yet will burst out with an impudent speech to his masters. I still don't fully understand whether these impassioned officially-worded outbursts are a piece of comedy, a projection of Walser's mental state, or have some basis in the reality of actual conversations in Switzerland/Germany in the 1900's.

If you're new to Walser I recommend Jakob Von Gunten, his most accessible and probably famous work, which is made so breezy by its young schoolboy narrator. Everyone should start there. If you're not new to Walser then you'll obviously want this book, there's nothing to say so I've done you no favors, unless you are a stick in the mud.

Did I forget to say this is an extremely enjoyable book?

Average customer rating:

Assistant, The : A Novel
J. Patrick Law
Manufacturer: Simon and Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O607D0

Average customer rating:

The Assistant
P. Calder Weller
Manufacturer: Trafford Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Fiction | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 141208587X
Release Date: 2006-06-30

Book Description

When Tim Casey, a young Irish seaman recently beached in San Francisco, knocked on the rectory door of Saint Patrick's Church in answer to a help wanted ad, he was utterly astonished at what met him when the door swung open. When he stepped inside he began a very humorous and warm relationship with the resident in charge, Father Michael O'Leary, as Irish as paddy's pig. But wait a minute, this is Tim Casey's story, let's let him tell us about that first meeting. He knows more about it than I. .

Average customer rating:

Magic, Mystery & Mayhem
An Outstanding Read!
A timely novel
A chilling thriller

The Assistant: A Novel

Manufacturer: Amazon Remainders Account
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H2MJXW

Amazon.com

The Jonathan Pollard case, in which an American-born Jew was convicted of spying for Israel, is a subtle but omnipresent theme in this suspenseful novel of Arab-Israeli-American relations. The conventional ingredients are here: terrorism, counter-terrorism, the explosive nature of Middle Eastern politics, and the threatened assassination of a high-level world leader in the midst of peace negotiations. In The Assistant, Law adds a less predictable element: the sayanim, or assistants, American Jews who support the Israeli government and its intelligence service, the Mossad, in its struggle to stay a step ahead of its Arab enemies.

One of these is Sid Poltarek, a successful Washington lawyer whose death after a suspicious encounter with an Arab physicist in Paris may not be what the Washington police tell Sid's son Ben it is--a simple case of hit-and-run. When a badly injured stranger makes his way to Ben's apartment and dies at his feet after whispering the cryptic words, "Tell Landau they're bringing in an American," Ben is slow to realize that the message was meant for his father, of whose sayanim background he was completely unaware. But it's not a surprise to Ben's lover, Rachel, who knows exactly who Sid was and who Landau is--one of the Mossad's top agents, a man with whom she has a long and troubled history.

Law keeps things interesting with a few extra plot turns: a foreign hit team trying to protect the planned crime by rubbing out anyone who might be able to stop it; a dirty cop who's been taking money from Arab intelligence interests; an American archaeologist married to a high-ranking Arab peacemaker murdered with their son in an ill-fated bombing attack for which both U.S. and Israel must suffer; and Jamal, Landau's enemy and the chief Arab terrorist, who plans to kidnap the president's daughter and hold her hostage unless the U.S. announces its total support of the Palestinian position in the peace talks. It adds up to a fast-paced debut thriller that devotees of cloak-and-daggers will appreciate; fans of Gerald Seymour, in particular, take note. --Jane Adams

Book Description

When Ben Poltarek, a young Washington lawyer and a brilliant amateur magician, opens his door to Tarnofsky, a dying secret agent whispering incomprehensible secrets, his life is changed forever. Ben is unexpectedly propelled into the secret underground of the "Assistants," American Jews who place their skills -- and their lives -- in the service of Israel. The territory is unfamiliar and the stakes, life or death.

Pursued by Arab terrorists who must silence him, manipulated by agents of the vaunted Mossad, and targeted by his own government, only Ben and his magic can save the Middle East from spiraling into flames and bringing the United States down with it.

Exploring the world of influence, espionage, and power in America's capital, The Assistant works from the controversial premise that spies may sometimes be great allies. Peopled with unforgettable characters, driven by wrenching plot twists, this novel combines spellbinding suspense and heartfelt storytelling to create a fascinating page-turner.

Customer Reviews:

Magic, Mystery & Mayhem.......2002-01-02

Jane Adams, who wrote first editorial review, should read the book. It's the President's son, not daughter, who is at risk.
The book is an exciting, fast paced thriller. What I found most interesting was the premise of the "Assistants;" Jews in foreign countries who aid the Mossad and the government of Israel without pay and who risk all in doing so. The little bit of info given about the author makes one wonder how much of this is truth disguised as fiction. There is mention of Osama Bin Laden and his threat against a First Lady, but makes it seem like that was the end of him. We all know better. The hero's interest in Magic is an important element of the story from beginning to end and the brotherhood of the magicians was another interesting
aspect I would like to read more about. I read this book in one sitting and would certainly like to read more by this author.
Treat yourself to this one!

An Outstanding Read!.......2001-07-15

You would have to tag this book a definite read. This is one of the better books that I have read this year. This book has everything for the reader. The Mossad.CIA,FBI, as well as a PLO type of terrorist group. Ben Polterak's parents are killed in a hit and run that turns out to be a murder. Ben discovers thar his parents have been a sayanim. Ben is then thrust into the world of international intrigue.There is nonstop action and excitement throughout the rest of the book. Ben and his girlfriend,an American doctor are threatened by a dangerous Arab terrorist. To this add the head of the Mossad. The Washington D.C. police even have a role in the book. All of these elements combine to make for an exciting book. The ending is breathtaking as well. Remember,this is a must buy as well as a must read.

A timely novel.......2000-11-01

See storyline above.

This timely novel about terrorists and the Mideast has a riveting beginning, and doesn't let up till the end. I think people who like espionage novels will enjoy this book. From the twists and turns to the few surprises you'll find, this book will keep you engrossed from start to finish. Enjoy.