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    The Eighth Veil
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    The Eighth Veil
    Unavailable
    The Eighth Veil
    Ebook313 pages4 hours

    The Eighth Veil

    By Frederick Ramsay

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    It is 28 CE, the time of the feast of Tabernacles. A servant girl is found in the baths of the palace of King Herod Antipas, her throat cut. Jerusalem is buzzing over the brutal death of a prophet, John, known familiarly as the Baptizer, and Prefect Pontius Pilate wants no more trouble. So he coerces Gamaliel, the chief rabbi and head of the Sanhedrin, into investigating the girl's death. Gamaliel is a Talmudic scholar, not a sleuth. But as he learns more of the dead girl's background and that of some key suspects, he begins to fit the evidence together. The entwined histories of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Herod the Great, Anthony, and Augustus Caesar suddenly gain relevance to affairs in Jerusalem. And all the while, an itinerant rabbi from Nazareth with his ragged band of enthusiasts and his habit of annoying Caiaphas, the High Priest, moves enigmatically in the background....

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPoisoned Pen Press
    Release dateFeb 1, 2012
    ISBN9781615953356
    Unavailable
    The Eighth Veil
    Author

    Frederick Ramsay

    Frederick Ramsay was raised on the east coast and attended graduate school in Chicago. He was a writer of mysteries set in Virginia, (the Ike Schwartz Mysteries) Botswana Mystery series, Jerusalem Mystery series and stand-alones (Impulse, Judas: The Gospel of Betrayal). He was a retired Episcopal Priest, Academic, and author.

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    • 3/5
      One of the perks of membership in the Historical Novel Society is their magazine that consists mainly of book reviews arranged by century. There’s usually not much for Late Antiquity [1st-5th century], but I eagerly check anyway. Imagine my astonishment when I saw the review of “Holy Smoke” by Frederick Ramsay, the second of his “Jerusalem Mysteries,” which takes place in 1st century Roman Palestina and stars as master detective – Rabban Gamliel, head of the Sanhedrin.

      Ancient Talmudic scholar solves murder mysteries! How could I pass up such a hero, especially when the novel was well reviewed and available in my local library? Since this was Book II, I checked out Book I, “The Eighth Veil." I admit to some trepidation after reading Ramsay’s author bio and learning that he is a retired Episcopal priest. But I figured that if this were a thinly disguised effort to promote Christianity, I would immediately stop reading and post a scathing review online.

      But to my surprise, Jesus, while mentioned in passing as an itinerant rabbi in the North, is neither a character nor an important figure. Ramsay paints a fairly accurate picture of 1st century Judaism and the difficulties Jerusalem Jews faced living under King Herod and Pontius Pilate. Gamliel is the voice of Rabbinic Judaism, which puts him in some conflict with the High Priest, but all this is in the background of the murder mystery that first and foremost shows how Gamliel, in classic reluctant detective mode, goes about discovering the truth so he can get back to his studies.

      I’ve been a murder mystery fan for as long as I can remember, devouring Agatha Christie, PD James, Ellis Peters, Dorothy Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc. After reading both of Ramsay’s “Jerusalem Mysteries,” I’m pleased to discover a novelist who does a pretty good job of combining this genre with my current passion, history of rabbis in Late Antiquity. Who knew?