The Last Testament

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.

Sam Bourne is the literary pseudonym of Jonathan Freedland, an award-winning British journalist and broadcaster. He is a weekly columnist for the Guardian (UK), having served as that paper’s Washington correspondent. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and the New Republic. He is a regular contributor to the Jewish Chronicle (UK) and presents BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series The Long View.

Bourne is the author of the New York Times and number one UK bestseller The Righteous Men, which has been translated into twenty-eight languages, and The Last Testament. He has also written two nonfiction works, Jacob’s Gift and Bring Home the Revolution. He lives in London with his wife and two children.