Publication Date March 11, 2025
As one of the many people who is confused, saddened, and frequently overwhelmed by the situation in the Middle East, I thought The Human Scale by Lawrence Wright might help me out. I am not up to reading a vast litany of historic facts, and I didn’t want a totally one-sided overview of the situation…so a fictional account written by a well-regarded (Pulitzer Prize-winning) author sounded like just the ticket. Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker, is affiliated with the Center for Law and Security at New York University School of Law, and is perhaps best known as the author of Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, published in 2006.
New York-based FBI agent Tony Malik, son of a Palestinian father and an Irish mother, decides that the end of a long-term relationship and the precarious future of his job is the perfect time to go to his father’s ancestral homeland for his niece’s wedding. The FBI asks him to perform what seems like a simple assignment while he is there. When he arrives, the Israeli Police Chief has just been murdered, and Malik is a suspect. There are lots of complications: the wedding is overshadowed by violence, the intended groom has ties to Hamas, there are corrupt cops galore, and the whole thing seems like an insurmountable mess. Yossi, the extremely anti-Arab Israeli police officer leading the investigation, learns to work with Malik as the two men come to learn they can’t really trust anyone on either side – except the other.
Tons of familiar events are noted, up to and including the Hamas attack on Israel in October, 2023, and I am sure I was not the only reader looking for some hope along with the exploration of the unending tragedy this religious and political conflict continues to reveal. Along with the many characters in the story, there is a ton of factual information and history woven throughout. A difficult and challenging read, it is also a very entertaining thriller. Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage & Anchor as well as NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for this honest review. Five exhausted stars.