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The Last Testament
The Last Testament
The Last Testament
Ebook492 pages9 hours

The Last Testament

By Sam Bourne

3.5/5

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Set against the backdrop of the world’s most bitter international conflict, The Last Testament is a brilliantly layered conspiracy thriller from Sam Bourne, author of the New York Times bestseller The Righteous Men. Jeffery Deaver, author of Cold Moon, has called Bourne’s writing, “thoroughly enjoyable and compelling,” and fans of Dan Brown, Raymond Khoury, and Daniel Pearl will eagerly devour this ingenious blend of religious and political intrigue. Nebraska’s Lincoln Journal Star calls The Last Testament, “A bloody well-done tale and it might even some day be true.”

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateApr 28, 2009
ISBN9780061866432
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Author

Sam Bourne

Sam Bourne is the pseudonym of Jonathan Freedland, an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. He has written a weekly column for the Guardian since 1997, having previously served as the paper’s Washington correspondent, and presents Radio 4’s contemporary history programme, The Long View. His first novel, The Righteous Men, was a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller. He lives in London with his wife and their two children.

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Reviews for The Last Testament

3.5/5

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  • 5/5
    Book Description April 2003: As his nation descends into chaos, an Iraqi boy loots an ancient clay tablet from a long-forgotten vault in the Baghdad Museum of Antiquities—unaware that his actions could ignite the war to end all wars. Years later, on the eve of a historic Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, bodyguards for Israel's prime minister gun down a possible assassin—and discover a blood-stained note clutched in the dead man's hand. With Middle Eastern tensions rapidly reaching the boiling point—in the wake of a frightening wave of seemingly random revenge killings—Maggie Costello is sent by Washington to try to keep the peace. A government negotiator with old sins to atone for, she immediately comes face-to-face with ancient secrets, extremist violence, and sudden, inexplicable death. For Maggie seems to hold the key to the last unsolved riddle of the Bible—a shocking revelation that could end the world's most bitter conflict . . . or leave the earth in ruins.

    My Review If you like books about political intrigue and Middle Eastern affairs, then this book is for you. It is a very good Biblical thriller with many twists and turns. I loved the well-developed character of Maggie Costello and I look forward to reading the next Sam Bourne book as I find his books very entertaining.
  • 2/5
    'The Mirror' reviewed it as "The biggest challenger to Dan Brown's crown." Well, hardly... not even close, especially not this book. The plot of the story centers around the brokering of a Middle East peace treaty, and the discovery of an object from antiquity, a tablet which turns out to be the last will and testament of a Biblical patriarch, bearing the bequeathment of Mount Moriah (aka the Temple Mount).

    The pace of the story was not all that engaging until about the last third of the book. Also, rather distracting was the timeline which kept switching from the present to the past, and from different perspectives at that, so that made the flow rather disjointed.
  • 2/5
    It wasn't great - even in Danish.
    There was a distinct lack of tension, and it didn't grip me at all. Took practically an eternity to get through, and I only finished it 'cause the library sent me an email saying it'd gotta go back!
    It's set in the Middle-Dast of course, and is connected with Middle-East peace talks. Given that we all know they'll never have peace down there, not while anyone from either side is alive/believes that their god gave them exclusive rights to the area; it can hardly be expected to generate any tension based on something potentially de-railling the latest round of talks/mud-casting.
    So, it's gotta be better in other areas, in tension, in action, in personal relationships, and while it tries, it can't quite believe enough in itself to pull it off.
    Then, the final revelation of what the whole thing turned on, that has been not quite revealled many times previously, was a bit ho-hum, as well. Especially, as it doesn't take a 5-year-old to tell you that no matter what it is, either side will denounce it as a fake anyway.
    I read one of his previous books (in English); The Righteous Men, and as a Dan Brown photocopy, it wasn't half bad. But this...well, I won't be rushing to check out any more. Even free from the library.
  • 3/5
    Well-paced, well characterised action novel. The unreality of the plot doesn't get in the way of a good read!
  • 2/5
    “The Last Testament” tries to be “The DaVinci Code” and doesn’t come close.With the backdrop of Israeli/Palestinian peace talks, a small tablet written by Abraham is discovered. Of course what it says is revealed at the very end, but it’s not hard to figure out. The protagonist is Maggie Costello, a diplomatic negotiator for the US who’s brought in from retirement to spearhead the talks. A bunch of chasing and running around ensues.One of the problems is that Maggie is supposed to be this grant negotiator, but we only get a small glimpse of that at the beginning as she’s mediating a divorce. We hear all about a major mistake she made previously (which is what put her into retirement). But we never really see why she’s deemed so valuable. Then all of sudden she’s running around Israel trying to discover why partisans on both sides of the talks have been killed.I’m not sure why I continued to read the book and once again swear not to do so any more. There are too many good books out there to waste time on one.
  • 1/5
    Very much in the Dan Brown cookie cutter type of novel. Not a bad read, but not great.
  • 4/5
    I've got to admit that I was a bit bored by the first few pages of the book as I'm a bit ignorant of the situation in Izrael. But then i read a few more pages and realised why Bourne was described as "the biggest challenger to Dan Brown's crown". In incredible chapters Maggie Costello the peace negotiator follows clues to find a hidden will which could change everything. And everyone seems to be a triator.
  • 3/5
    After a year in Washington, DC, Maggie Costello is smothering under the control of her boyfriend, Edward, and her job as a divorce mediator. Until Washington she had been another kind of mediator, one involved in big stakes in the high-pressure world of international politics. When the US government needed someone to bring two opposin