annual guide to cool reading.
Government Press Office and
columnist for the respected Is-
;=-raeli magazine Jerusalem Re-
port, Mr. Chafets is well suited
to spin the tale of two NBA bas-
ketball stars and their celebri-
ty coach who are mistakenly
kidnapped from the Tel Aviv
Hilton en route to a diplomat-
ic reception in Jerusalem.
One player is killed imme-
diately and the other two
hostages are whisked away to
the East Jerusalem compound
of radical Islamic terrorist
leader Dr. Abu Walid. The Sun-
ni terrorists cleverly deceive the
United States into believing
that the Shiite Hezbollah, un-
rors Islamic extremists contin-
ue to perpetrate. One only
wishes that the brutal disre-
gard for the sanctity of human
life exhibited by those who pur-
port to act in the name of God
were confined to such well-
crafted suspense novels.
—BZF
`The Nylon
Hand of God'
By Steven Hartov
William Morrow, 468 pgs., $23.
p
Casablanca to the harsh desert
of the Algerian Sahara where
Baum must rescue his daugh-
ter, retrieve a stolen American
weapon and destroy Klump's
plans.
The plot's twists and turns
reveal both the strengths and
weaknesses of the bonds be-
tween human beings, as strong
familial relations freely inter-
mingle with brutal murders.
Readers are offered a glimpse
into the harsh realities of the
lives led by intelligence officers
as well as the unique and pow-
erful links they forge among
themselves.
fitting Israeli military in-
—BZF
telligence officers against
ruthless Iranian-backed
terrorists, Steven Har-
tov's second novel is a dark and
twisted espionage thriller.
By Susan Isaacs
With vivid descriptions of HarperCollins, 459 pgs., $25.
people and places, the former
usan Isaacs' fans will not
member of Israel's Parachute
be
disappointed by her
Corps and Military Intelligence
latest novel, Lily White.
lures readers into the danger-
As in her previous work,
ous and duplicitous underworld
this
new
novel incorporates
of spymasters and terrorists. A
suicide bombing at the Israeli murder and intrigue into the
Consulate in New York City life of a seemingly ordinary
brings soon-to-retire Lt. Col. character.
Lily White, also known as
Benjamin Baum to Manhattan.
Lee,
is a criminal defense at-
Baum must investigate
whether the bombing is linked
to "Operation Moonlight," the
impending covert prisoner ex-
change between Israel and
Hezbollah that he has orches-
trated.
While in New York, Baum
tries to reconcile with his es-
tranged daughter, a psycholo-
gy graduate student at
Columbia University. Her in-
terest in terrorist psychology
and in impressing her spy-
master father subsequently en-
tangles her with notorious
German terrorist Martina
Klump, a free-lancer hired by
an anonymous employer to de-
rail the prisoner exchange. Also
a suspect in the consulate
bombing, the beautiful and re-
sourceful terrorist has an an-
cient score to settle with Baum
and will go to great lengths to
achieve all her nefarious goals.
The ensuing web of intrigue
and betrayal extends from the
streets of New York to a U.S.
military base, from the cafes of
`Lily White'
S
der Iranian sponsorship, is
holding the hostages in south-
,==ern Lebanon. The kidnappers
demand that the American
president apologize for his anti-
Islamic policies and that Israel
release imprisoned terrorists.
Tyrone Holliman, a re-
sourceful hostage and forward
for the Detroit Pistons, be-
\___friends Dr. Abu Walid's son,
who yearns to play basketball;
his devout father allows his son
to indulge in the infidel sport
with Tyrone. Meanwhile, the
player's older brother, former
Detroit police captain Rasheed
Holliman, joins forces with his
old friend, Israeli chief of police
›-Yoav Kedmi, to rescue Tyrone.
The shared American and Is-
raeli strategic goal of destroy-
ing Iranian support for Islamic
radicalism frustrates efforts to
rescue the hostages. The two
friends eventually circumvent
official channels and launch a
'rogue rescue operation.
The thriller sadly mirrors
the realities of Islamic radical-
ism and pounds home the hor-
torney practicing on Long Is-
land. While representing a
clever con man accused of mur-
dering one of his wealthy.
"rnsrks," she has occasion to ex-
amine her own life and make
drastic changes in lifestyle.
Born into a decidedly dys-
functional family, Lee would
have had the less laughable
name Lily Weiss had she been
born two weeks premature. But
her parents — Leonard, a
wealthy WASP-ophile furrier,
and Sylvia, her vain, hypochon-
driac mother — were deter-
mined to fit into gentile society
and changed their last name
from Weissberg to Weiss to
White.
Desperate to be part of the
non-Jewish upper crust who
live near them in Shorehaven,
Long Island, Mr. White at-
tempts to befriend the Taylors,
a shabbily genteel family in-
habiting a nearby mansion. He
stares longingly at Foster and
Ginger Taylor, but they are un-
aware of the Whites until Lee
sets the two worlds on a colli-
sion course. She marries Fos-
ter and Ginger's son, Jasper
"Jazz" Taylor, an attorney with
a brilliant career ahead of him.
POETRY
`The Figured
Wheel : New and
Collected Poems,
1966-1996'
By Robert Pinsky
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 300 pgs., $35.
obert Pinsky has a rigorous intel-
l ect, a generous heart and a pen-
chant for structures drawn from
oth the canon of poetry and popu-
lar culture.
A stunning example of the latter in this
rich collection of the poet's complete works
to date is an elegy called "Impossible To
Tell." Constructed from the seemingly un-
related structures of the Jewish joke and
the Japanese linking-poem, it leads into
16 new and masterful poems.
Whether lyric, narrative or didactic,
Mr. Pinsky's poetry pulls the mundane
and sublime into a tight and vibrant fab-
ric sewn together with imaginative and
associative threads to reveal the soul of
civilization in progress. An explicitly Jew-
ish sensibility is apparent in poems such
as "Pilgrimage," "The Night Game," 'The
Uncreation" and 'The Ice Storm."
In the narrative poem "History of My
Heart," past and present, desire and iden-
tity are illuminated from dif-
ferent angles. A fluid
sensibility lubricates the
shifts. Such sensuality reap-
pears in the lyric "City Ele-
gies" which translates the
relationship between self
and place:
All day all over the city
every person
Wanders in a different city,
sealed intact ...
Stone gable, Brick escarp-
ment, cliffs of crystal.
Connection is the central
impulse in all of Mr. Pinsky's
poems. This important col-
lection of complete works is
an opportunity to travel with
Mr. Pinsky through his ex- fT,
aminations and revelations,
while also leaving oneself oz;
open for the reverberations
of form and content of the po- u
ems. In addition to the poet's
original work, this volume --'
ends with a section of trans-
49