The human scale

Lawrence Wright, 1947-

Book - 2025

"Tony Malik is a half-Irish, half-Arab New York based FBI agent, specializing in money flowing from drug and arms deals. The novel opens in shocking fashion, with Malik seriously injured by a terrorist-planted bomb. During his lengthy recuperative process, his life changes radically. A long-term relationship ends, and his job is on the verge of being taken away from him. During this period he learns more about his roots and becomes interested in his father's past and family - his father came to America years ago from Palestine. He decides to make a trip to his father's homeland to attend the wedding of his niece, whom he has never met. As a result of his plans, he is given a simple assignment by his boss at the FBI, partly to... see how well he can still do his job. That simple assignment becomes extremely complicated. As soon as he arrives in Gaza, the Israeli police chief overseeing the area is murdered. Malik is at first a suspect. Then, due to his superior investigative skills, he is invited into the Israeli investigation, seeking the murderer. At the center of this novel is Malik's relationship with Yossi, the hardline anti-Arab Israeli police officer leading the investigation. They must learn to trust each other because, as they move closer to solving the case, they realize there is no one else they can trust on either side. Extraordinary three dimensional characters populate this novel: Yossi's daughter, studying in Paris, trying to escape the violence that surrounds her in Israel; Malik's niece, whose wedding and life are shattered by the murder; her fiancé, a peacenik whose existence is complicated by the fact that his cousin is high up in the Hamas command; religious leaders on both sides; corrupt Israeli cops; Palestinians thirsting for violence against Israel; Israelis determined to crush the Palestinians. Lawrence Wright brings a wide and complicated tapestry to life, one that culminates on October 7 with the deadly Hamas attack on Israel. But he has written more than just a thriller, or even just an examination of all these complicated lives. He has written a novel that manages to explore and explain much of the devastating history that encompasses the relationship between Israel and Palestine-and shows it to us in a way that poignantly reveals the tragic human scale that is involved"--

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FICTION/Wright Lawrence
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1st Floor New Shelf FICTION/Wright Lawrence (NEW SHELF) Due Apr 24, 2025
Subjects
Genres
Thrillers (Fiction)
Detective and mystery fiction
Novels
Published
New York : Alfred A. Knopf 2025.
Language
English
Main Author
Lawrence Wright, 1947- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
429 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9780593537831
9780593686249
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

After a bomb blast in Jordan in 2022 that cost him an eye, mobility, and mental clarity, FBI investigator Malik, who has never met his Palestinian father's family in Hebron, decides to attend his niece's wedding. The FBI grants him a small assignment--find out what the Jewish police chief is so anxious to tell them. After Malik's brief initial meeting with him, the chief is gruesomely murdered. Malik tentatively joins forces with the new chief, Yossi, a man of mixed messages, to investigate the killing, a quest that ends up affecting Malik's niece, her younger brother (a talented hacker), her fiancé, formerly with Hamas, and Yossi's brilliant daughter, Sara, visiting from Paris. Wright, a renowned journalist and novelist fluent in the paradoxes and tragedies of the Middle East, brings all his knowledge and compassion to this profoundly insightful thriller, creating involving, conflicted, and thoughtful characters trapped in horrific predicaments and a riveting story that reveals the deep trauma of Israelis, the brutality of the Israeli occupation, the fury and despair of Palestinians, the opposing religious convictions that stoke and sanctify perpetual violence, and the criminality that funds it. As the action leads inexorably to the October 7 Hamas attack and massacre, Wright considers the scale on which we weigh the value of human lives and the perpetual struggle for peace.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This superb thriller from Pulitzer winner Wright (The End of October) centers on Anthony Malik, a half-Irish, half-Arab FBI terrorism expert who's seriously injured in a bombing in Jordan. After a lengthy hospital stay and before returning to active service, Malik visits Gaza--both to attend the wedding of a cousin he's never met and to connect with his father's roots. The trip takes a turn when an Israeli police chief who requested a confidential audience with the FBI is murdered shortly after meeting with Malik. At first, Malik is a suspect, but he soon becomes an unofficial coinvestigator alongside hard-edged police inspector Yossi Ben-Gal. Malik's family gets entangled in the incident when his cousin's fiancé, Jamal, falls under suspicion for the killing. The novel is populated with well-shaded supporting characters, most notably Yossi's daughter, Sara, who flees Israel for Paris to escape the region's cycle of violence. The story culminates with a gut-wrenching dramatization of the October 7 Hamas attacks, which land with thunderous thematic force. The result is an uncomfortable and unforgettable plunge into the heart of a devastating conflict. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Mar.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

In Wright's latest topical novel, the murder of an Israeli police chief in a West Bank settlement inflames tensions, ultimately leading to the October 7 massacre. When FBI agent Tony Malik, whose father is Palestinian, travels to the historic city of Hebron to attend a cousin's wedding, he's still recovering from a bomb explosion that left him with erratic memory loss. His sense of disorientation deepens when, drawn into the investigation of the chief's murder--after having been falsely named a suspect--he encounters extreme forms of violence, hatred, and inhumanity on both sides of the conflict. Teamed with hardline Israeli cop Yossi Ben-Gal, he soon recognizes that anyone could have killed the police chief, whose pacifist leanings may have cost him his life. Asked whether he's worried about dangerous activities in Gaza, Yossi dismisses them as "some virus that pops up every few years, sometimes deadly, sometimes you hardly notice, like the difference between a cold and the flu." No one, including Malik, is safe in this hostile environment, where religious leaders financed by drug money call for the destruction of the enemy and a "human scale" determines the value of a life, as in one abducted Israeli being worth 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Lacking the deep literary expression of a Robert Stone, Wright falls short of capturing "the implacable darkness of human nature" (though he comes close in having the slain chief's missing head become a pawn in a deadly game), and he frequently slips into didacticism. But the book, based on the author's years of reporting in the region, is fully believable--and full of suspense. "What nobody outside understands is the real enemy is not each other," says one of many ill-fated characters. "It is peace we hate." A timely and gripping novel that works best as a political thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.