The Last Testament

Brilliant.

Maggie Costello is called out of her new direction of peace making to go to Jerusalem. She doesn't know the real reason, but it gives her the opportunity to leave behind the poor new life she has made and atone for her previous errors, for which she cannot forgive herself.

Plenty of twists and turns in this action packed chase to find and use the Last Testament of Abraham to save the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks.

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 show more 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. show less

Right up to the last 100 pages or so of this book, I was fully intending to give it two stars. Maybe two and a half. Fairly tired old "stunning biblical secret is discovered that the bad guys will stop at nothing to suppress" stuff and a whole lot of fairly boring Middle East politics. THEN the author snatches victory (sort of) from the jaws of defeat with some twists you won't see coming, some twists you'll coming but aren't the twists you think they are, and a more satisfying ending than I expected. So many of these type of books end up with the world-shattering secret ultimately being destroyed or otherwise suppressed. It's a nice change in this one to have it announced to the world at the end of the book.

Negotiator Maggie Costello is called out of professional exile to mediate in the latest peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. There is much in play, with American elections not far off and a chance at peace, Maggie can not afford her heart to cloud her judgement.

Just as it looks like the peace might hold, an academic, Guttman, is shot at a rally as he tries to pass a note to the Israeli President. Maggie faces a race against time to find out what Guttman had discovered. What was in the document looted in the chaos after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, and why does it appear that both sides want the information kept buried? Maggie gains help in the form of Uri, Guttman's son, but is unsure as to whether she can trust show more someone so involved in the situation.

I enjoyed this, it is a page-turning thriller, though one in which there are a few convenient coincidences. Bourne brings together all the elements you want for a good summer read, recommended for fans of thrillers with a historical connection. show less

Title: THE LAST TESTAMENT
Author: Sam Bourne
Publisher: Harper Collins
Edition released: July 2007
ISBN: 978-0-00-720333-8
442 pages
Review by: Karen Chisholm

The blurb for THE LAST TESTAMENT reads along the lines of "The Biggest Challenger to Dan Brown's Crown" and "A brilliant new high-concept religious conspiracy theory thriller", which might put some readers off, or at the very least set you up with some pre-conceived conceptions about the book. Ignore all of that and you'll be getting a fast paced, believable thriller which sets itself within a current day conflict in a very realistic manner.

In the dying days of the regime in Iraq, the Baghdad Museum of Antiquities is looted. A young boy takes an ancient clay tablet, hidden away in a show more forgotten vault.

At a rally for the signing of an historical peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Israeli security forces shoot dead a Jewish man, pushing his way through the crowd towards the Israeli Prime Minister. Instead of a gun, the man they thought was an assassin held a blood-stained note, addressed to his old friend the Prime Minister.

The peace negotiations falter as a series of tit for tat killings start up in both the Palestinian and Jewish territories. Washington takes the rather unusual step of calling in once star negotiator Maggie Costello, despite the fact that her last involvement in official negotiation ended in semi-disgrace. Costello arrives in Jerusalem and is instantly plunged into a mystery rooted in the last unsolved riddle of the Bible, with extremists on both sides not afraid to kill and menace to push the negotiations in the direction that they want.

THE LAST TESTAMENT is a thriller with a certain level of suspension of disbelief required from the start. Early on the reader is really wondering why on earth Maggie would be called back to work as a negotiator - her personal life and her previous entanglements in other negotiations would seem to make her a bit of a liability! On the other hand, when she arrives in Jerusalem and basically heads off out of the negotiation arena, on her own private quest to solve a riddle, you're really wondering what on earth is going on for a while. But, ultimately, if the test of a good thriller is whether or not you're more than happy to let some of the niggling inconsistencies roll whilst the story drags you along, then THE LAST TESTAMENT delivers in spades.

Sure there's a premise at the base of THE LAST TESTAMENT that has the potential to cause religious debate and maybe even controversy, making it another potential entrant in the "stirring up religious debate" category of thrillers that have been doing the rounds recently. Whether or not that's a category of book that suits you will be very dependent on each individual reader.

Maggie's not a bad character - she's a bit flawed, a bit insecure, a bit useless when it comes to sorting out her own life - but she knows it and she's not self-pitying about it. The other main character, Uri - son of the murdered suspected assassin is a bit ethereal in the book - there's a little of his background, enough to flesh him out a bit, but not enough to ever really let the reader inside his head too far and that's a bit tantalising. There are some other secondary characters that are interesting, some that are perhaps a little too predictable, but they fit within the general persona of the novel and the location it is set in.

Where THE LAST TESTAMENT appealed was in the realistic feel of the location of the story, and the way that the events moved rapidly. There are some twists and turns at the end, some of which were predictable and some were not. Even the more predictable elements weren't bland though, there were some nice gotcha moments that gave them some spark and interest. show less

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 opposing sides together, they called Maggie. And it worked well until something went very wrong and real people paid the price with their lives and so she ended up in Washington with Edward mediating fights between couples instead of countries.

One morning Maggie receives a visit by a government agent who convinces her to return to her first natural talent and she quickly finds herself in the midst of a tense show more standoff between Israel and Palestine. When a murder of a prominent right-wing activist stalls the talks, Maggie steps in to investigate. What she finds leads her on a spine-tingling, intensive hunt for the murderer and where at times she becomes the hunted. Along the way Maggie has the help of Uri Guttman, a man who is trying to discover what role his father played in the sensitive mid-east peace process.

A blurb on the back cover of this novel says it is “The biggest challenger to Dan Brown’s crown”. I can see why. It’s similar in that there are two characters who follow the trail of an ancient artifact knowing that what it reveals will change the course of history. And like Dan Brown’s book, The Last Testament also has plenty of short chapters with most having cliff-hangers at the end of them. But the similarity ends there. It does after all take place in the Middle East. I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that if you liked the Da Vinci Code you will also enjoy this book. show less

“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 show more 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. show less