01/27/2014
Kestin (The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats) settles for soap opera instead of meaningfully engaging with the moral issues raised by the ticking-time-bomb scenario of this clever, if contrived thriller. In the prologue, set in an Israeli hospital 45 years earlier than the main narrative, an Arab woman gives birth to a daughter and a Jewish woman has a son. In the present, Edward Al-Masri, a passionate advocate for Palestinian independence, and Dahlia Barr, an Israeli human rights lawyer, both in their mid-40s, are at turning points. Edward is arrested on returning from America to Israel with some smuggled currency, and Dahlia accepts the unlikely role of deciding which of Israel’s prisoners are to be tortured in order to prevent terrorist attacks. One such prisoner is Edward, whom Dahlia happens to know. Hezbollah’s kidnapping of Dahlia’s 20-year-old Israeli soldier son makes her job personal. The closing twist will resonate with fans of Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)
The Lie: A Novel
Narrated by Kathe Mazur
Hesh KestinUnabridged — 6 hours, 5 minutes
The Lie: A Novel
Narrated by Kathe Mazur
Hesh KestinUnabridged — 6 hours, 5 minutes
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Overview
Dahlia Barr is a devoted mother, soon-to-be divorced wife, lover of an American television correspondent. She is also a brash and successful Israeli attorney who is passionate about defending Palestinians accused of terrorism. One day, to her astonishment, the Israeli national police approach Dahlia with a tantalizing proposition: Join us, and become the government's arbiter on when to use the harshest of interrogation methods-what some would call torture. Dahlia is intrigued. She has no intention of permitting torture, but can she change the system from within? She takes the job.
As Dahlia settles into her new role, her son Ari, a twenty-year-old lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces, is kidnapped by Hezbollah and whisked over the border to Lebanon. The one man who may hold the key to Ari's rescue is locked in a cell in police headquarters. He is an Arab who has a long and complicated history with Dahlia. And he's not talking. Yet.
A nail-biting thriller that “will stay with you” (The New York Times Book Review), The Lie is an unforgettable story of human beings on both sides of the terror equation whose lives turn out to share more in common than they ever could have imagined. “An utterly riveting thriller that is likely to rank as one of the year's best...The Lie has everything: memorable characters, a compelling plot, white-knuckle military action, and an economy and clarity of prose that is direct, powerful, and at times beautiful” (Booklist, starred review).
Editorial Reviews
"A page-turner that will engage your mind and emotions in a way few novels do. The narrative is headlong, the issues have never been more current, and the characters come alive from the page. This is a story about the lies we tell until the truth is forced upon us, and about divided countries, including those of the human heart. I started reading; I ended up experiencing. The Lie is what great fiction is all about."
Extraordinarily fun and surprisingly intriguing.
"A suspenseful read."
"Knuckle-gnawing, heart-stopping,sleep-suspending . . . The plot is compelling; the writing taut, lucid . . .and the issues around which the story revolves are as current as the breakingnews . . . Simply superb fiction."
A fast-moving, tense thriller… Calling the book cinematic takes nothing away from its literary muscle… A tightly plotted story, a political game of nerve with some seriously charismatic special ops for good measure…. Kestin brings the action alive through details both mundane and exotic… A vivid picture of life in an everyday war zone.
"I was moved to tears (and cheers!) by this wonderfully compelling account of deeply personal conflict in the midst of Israel's war against terror. Hesh Kestin is a superb storyteller who knows the Middle East intimately. The Lie is alive with an abundance of surprising fact and thoroughly engaging fiction."
"Not a single word is wasted in Kestin's masterfully wrought and mercilessly readable novel of intrigue, and terror. The Lie's political, cultural, and personal insights are matched only by its breathtaking action and suspense. Quite simply, the best thriller I've read in ages."
"A page-turning triumph, foaming with emotional resonance and ripped-from-the-headlines suspense."
"An utterly riveting thriller . . . The Lie has everything: memorable characters, a compelling plot, white-knuckle military action, and an economy and clarity of prose that is direct, powerful, and at times beautiful."
Kestin, a Brooklyn-raised former foreign correspondent, engages us with authentic detail. . . . [The Lie] will stay with you.
An intense, ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller . . . Give[s] readers plenty of insight into the moral issues surrounding torture, security, and human rights, as well as the complexity of the current situation in Israel.
"An utterly riveting thriller . . . The Lie has everything: memorable characters, a compelling plot, white-knuckle military action, and an economy and clarity of prose that is direct, powerful, and at times beautiful."
Extraordinarily fun and surprisingly intriguing.
"An utterly riveting thriller . . . The Lie has everything: memorable characters, a compelling plot, white-knuckle military action, and an economy and clarity of prose that is direct, powerful, and at times beautiful."
Kestin, a Brooklyn-raised former foreign correspondent, engages us with authentic detail… [The Lie] will stay with you.
2014-01-23
In this taut novel, the dark complexities of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict hit home for a hard-edged female human rights attorney when her soldier son is kidnaped by Hezbollah. Dahlia Barr, a 44-year-old beauty whose defense of Palestinians has made her an object of derision for many Israelis—including her extreme activist mother, Erika—unexpectedly is tapped by the Israel Police to serve as an arbiter in regard to interrogation methods. Among her first cases is that of Mohammed Al-Masri, a Canadian political-science professor (and CNN contributor) who was a schoolmate of Dahlia's when he was growing up in Israel. Dahlia is still close to his mother, whom she regards as an aunt. Edward, as he now insists on being called, is being secretly held for attempting to smuggle a large sum of money into Israel. After telling police the money was to build a house for his mother, he tells Dahlia that it was planted on him by "stinking Jews." After viewing video footage of her soldier son, Ari, being tortured, Dahlia will stop at nothing to get Edward to tell her where 20-year-old Ari is being held. In a matter of pages, the Israelis mount an intricate, highly risky, Entebbe-like scheme to snatch Ari out of Lebanon. While aspects of this story call out for fuller or more rounded treatment, the novel gains an urgency and readability from its succession of one- and two-page chapters and overall brevity. Dahlia—who, in the wake of a failed marriage, is having an affair with an American CNN reporter—is a magnetic presence throughout. In an extraordinary scene, she goes through protesters' tents outside the Knesset to find Erika and orders her to submit to a blood test to determine if she is a suitable kidney donor for her brutalized grandson. The lie in the title, which readers may be onto well before it is fully revealed, provides a powerful and unsettling finale.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170796236 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 03/11/2014 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Lie
As the taxi plows sullenly through the Montreal snows, Fawaz Awad sits behind the driver puffing on a Gauloise in a gold cigarette holder. The left side of his heavy face is scarred, perhaps from burns, his thick glasses framed in gold with the left lens blacked out. In his mid-fifties, he is elegantly dressed, his left sleeve folded and pinned at the elbow. A cashmere overcoat is neatly arrayed on the seat between the two passengers.
“The Jews have one weakness,” he says. “They will fight to the last child. They will clean up the blood and broken glass so that an hour from the worst attack, there is not a sign. They do business, conduct scientific research, write novels, make love.” He sighs for effect. “But they hate when the world condemns them. Funny, no? We send thousands of rockets over their cities, and they laugh. But when the UN declares them to be criminals, they cry and tear their hair: ’Oy vey—nobody loves us!’ ” He laughs. “Praise Allah, this is not an Arab trait.”
Al-Masri cracks the rear window against the veil of smoke. “Praise Allah,” he says, not bothering to hide the cynicism. He has not seen the inside of a mosque in years.
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