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Will Monroe, a new reporter for the New York Times, is called away from a concert he’s attending with his father to cover the murder of a small-time pimp. Trying to make a name for himself as a reporter, Will digs deeper into the murdered man’s life and comes up with a human-interest story that rates the paper’s front page. Then Will reports on another death, this time of a recluse living deep in the woods of Montana. Oddly enough, those who knew their secret lives describe both men as ‘righteous’. Will is curious about the phrasing of the praise, but he pushes all thoughts of the two men aside when he returns home to find his wife Beth has been kidnapped. Judge Monroe, Will’s father, wants to call the police, but Will refuses after receiving a message on his cell phone warning him to stay clear of the law. Instead, Will asks an old girlfriend for help in decoding the strange phone messages he receives after Beth’s abduction. TC doesn’t hold it against Will that he left her to marry Beth. Instead, she acts as an old friend would and joins him in the search for Beth. TC recognizes some of the phone messages as biblical passages and others as decodable series of numbers. Slowly but surely, the two friends discover enough to lead them to a rabbi in the Hasidic community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn. Will learns of a Jewish folk tale regarding 36 righteous men who are believed to hold the world’s fate in their hands. Apparently someone, or some group, is killing this generation’s 36 righteous men. Crazy as it may seem, Will must save the life of the last righteous man before he can free Beth. Kerry Shale does a magnificent reading of this audio book, lifting it from the commonplace to the extraordinary with a wide range of vocal changes that makes each character recognizable and unique. The plot may be as far-fetched as that of Brown’s DA VINCI CODE, but the action is fast and plentiful, the puzzles intriguing, and the characters likable and distinct. Sam Bourne, aka British journalist Jonathan Freedland, mixes mysticism with riddles to make this an enjoyable read for those who like suspense with a twist.
Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, March 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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