The third of four in the extraordinary and strange novels of the Jerusalem Quartet is very different from the first two. For one, it's serious, shadowed, dark. This is not a John LeCarre mystery, clever layers within layers, this third book is a meditation on purpose and what happens if a person loses hope. Stern, the son of Plantagenet Strongbow, born in the desert around the turn of the century is a child of everywhere and everyone, nowhere and no one. He is a big quiet, intriguing, kind, loveable and mysterious man. His dream is of helping to create a Palestine where the monotheistic monoliths, Christianity, Islam, Judaism can exist in harmony. Directly opposed to this sort of blasphemy (although they are only one among many) are the Nazis who, in love with death (in their own sick way recognizing that in death is the perfection they seek--absolute control, absolute authority). Cairo, unthinkably, is under threat. Rommel is impossible to stop. How do the Germans always seem to know what the British have planned? Stern has worked as an agent for decades and comes under suspicion. Joe O'Sullivan Beare (from the previous novel who, appropriately, has lived as a shaman in the American Southwest for the last ten or so years but is an old friend of Stern's) is called in to unravel the mystery of Stern. Instead he finds that Stern is unraveling, for as the war rages on, he is losing fait, suspecting that his cause is hopeless, that the difficulty is within the human soul -- that humans are impossible to manage, life itself is impossible to manage because all is in constant in motion, changing, evolving . . . and at the core? Life and love, life and suffering and loss are inseparable. Some kind of fundamental, almost impersonal wickedness is inevitable. The story itself is a vehicle for these meditations and if you don't like thoughtful books, don't bother. It feels as if there ought to be a plot, what with all swirling secret agents and agencies at loggerheads, but there really is not. What Joe does find out is . . . well, I can't spoil, but it has more to do with the state of a soul and what I was writing of above so if you're looking for a clever plot, etcetera, stay away. Honestly, I never did figure out, not for sure (if there even is an answer in the text I might have missed it) whether Stern did betray anything to the Germans by accident or on purpose. And it's not really the point, is it?

Correction: The review below mine on the book page states that the novel is set during WW1. No. It is WW2. ( )

Just here in the shadows in the strong quiet sounds of their being.. Nile shadows after all, the shadows of the world raging. But those strong quiet echoes of the river are within us too, thank God, going right on and never to be still..

Egypt during WW1, with Germany fast encroaching is a place full of spies. A chaotic whirlwind of double dealing and confusion. In amongst them is the Monastery, headquarters of the secret, secret British service, where the tough decisions are made, where the most secretive espionage is done. Brought into this mix is the garrulous Irish Man of Jerusalem Poker, his task to find out the truth of Stern. A double, triple agent? Fighting for peace, but whose? And at what cost?

This, I think is the most difficult book of all the Quartet. Not just, because in stark contrast to the previous books it so very dark but because it’s filled with dialogue. Action is light and happens between the lengthy conversations as characters bleed their life story onto the page. It's worth hanging on though, the payoff is good, all that listening has drawn you into the tragedy unfolding (Don’t worry no spoiler it starts at the end). I say good, I admit I was in tears and unlike before there is no obvious truth here to comfort, well apart from that, life is murky after all.

It’s a powerful book and I don’t recommend starting here. If it doesn’t sound like you, you can probably skip to the last book but it would be a shame, it’s a intense book, but a good one.

"Revolution, said Stern. We can't even comprehend what it is, not what it means or what it suggests. We pretend it means total change but it's much more than that, so vastly more complex, and yes, so much simpler too. It's not just the total change from night to day as our earth spins in its revolutions around a minor star. It's also our little star revolving around its own unknowable center and so with all the stars in their billions, and so with the galaxies and the universe itself. Change revolves and truly there is nothing but revolution. All movement is revolution and so is time, and although those laws are impossibly complex and beyond us, their result is simple. For us, very simple. Relentlessly plunging Jerusalem into its greatest turmoil since the First Crusade." ( )