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Overview
“Powerful . . . A combustible mixture of science and mysticism, a high-altitude thriller fizzing with intrigue.” –JOHN CASE, Author of The Eighth DayIn a breathless thriller that explores the relationship between science and the divine, good and evil, space and time, Jane Jensen takes us from the world we know into a reality we could only scarcely imagine. Until now.
Rabbi Aharon Handalman’s expertise with Torah code–rearranging words and letters in the Bible–has uncovered a man’s name. Who is Yosef Kobinski, and why did God hide his name in His sacred text? To find the answers, Aharon begins an investigation, and discovers that Kobinski, a Polish rabbi, was not only a mystic but also a brilliant physicist who authored what may be the most important lost work in human history.
In Seattle, Jill Talcott’s work with energy wave equations is being linked to Yosef Kobinski, now deceased, who claimed nearly fifty years ago that he discovered an actual physical law of good and evil. But when Jill’s lab explodes, she is forced to flee for her life, realizing that her cutting-edge research is far more dangerous than she ever has imagined. And that powerful people have a stake in what she may have uncovered.
Now Jill, her research partner, and a writer fascinated by Kobinski are about to meet Handalman in Poland–all four desperate to solve the astonishing riddle. Searching through the past, they trace Kobinski to a clearing in the woods near Auschwitz. And in that clearing they come face-to-face with the inexplicable: that Kobinski, drawing on his own alchemy of science and the Kabbalah, made himself vanish from the death camp in a blaze of fire. Now, with intelligence agents hot on their trail, the investigators have no choice. They must follow Kobinski –to wherever he may have gone. . . .
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Synopsis
“Powerful . . . A combustible mixture of science and mysticism, a high-altitude thriller fizzing with intrigue.” –JOHN CASE, Author of The Eighth Day
In a breathless thriller that explores the relationship between science and the divine, good and evil, space and time, Jane Jensen takes us from the world we know into a reality we could only scarcely imagine. Until now.
Rabbi Aharon Handalman’s expertise with Torah code–rearranging words and letters in the Bible–has uncovered a man’s name. Who is Yosef Kobinski, and why did God hide his name in His sacred text? To find the answers, Aharon begins an investigation, and discovers that Kobinski, a Polish rabbi, was not only a mystic but also a brilliant physicist who authored what may be the most important lost work in human history.
In Seattle, Jill Talcott’s work with energy wave equations is being linked to Yosef Kobinski, now deceased, who claimed nearly fifty years ago that he discovered an actual physical law of good and evil. But when Jill’s lab explodes, she is forced to flee for her life, realizing that her cutting-edge research is far more dangerous than she ever has imagined. And that powerful people have a stake in what she may have uncovered.
Now Jill, her research partner, and a writer fascinated by Kobinski are about to meet Handalman in Poland–all four desperate to solve the astonishing riddle. Searching through the past, they trace Kobinski to a clearing in the woods near Auschwitz. And in that clearing they come face-to-face with the inexplicable: that Kobinski, drawing on his own alchemy of science and the Kabbalah, made himself vanish from the death camp in a blaze of fire. Now, with intelligence agents hot on their trail, the investigators have no choice. They must follow Kobinski –to wherever he may have gone. . . .
The Washington Post
Equally assured at mathematical speculation and kabbalistic cosmology, the novel is fast-paced, suspenseful and a joy from beginning to end. — Fiona Kelleghan
Editorials
The Washington Post
Equally assured at mathematical speculation and kabbalistic cosmology, the novel is fast-paced, suspenseful and a joy from beginning to end. — Fiona KelleghanPublishers Weekly
Science and sci-fi go hand in hand in this ambitious, if not entirely successful, thriller by Jensen (Millennium Rising), which incorporates elements of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) as well as theoretical physics. During WWII, physicist and mystic Rabbi Yosef Kobinski vanished from Auschwitz in a blinding flash of light. Kobinski left behind at the camp his Kabbalist masterpiece, The Book of Torment, to be buried for safekeeping. Half a century later, a Jerusalem rabbi and an American journalist are trying to find it. Kobinski had also discovered a mathematical theorem that accounts for good and evil in the universe. The theorem is astonishingly similar to work that Dr. Jill Talcott and her assistant Nate Andros have been doing at the University of Washington, studying the effects of energy waves on living creatures. Talcott and Andros are not yet aware of the full destructive potential of their experiments, but the government is, and its agents are soon on Talcott's trail as she takes up the search for Kobinski's manuscript. The principals ultimately find themselves gathered at the very site near Auschwitz where Kobinski disappeared, and they too are in for an otherworldly odyssey. Jensen is on surer ground describing Kabbalah and Holocaust history than she is plotting supernatural adventures, which unravel by the end. But she gets points for the innovative, multifaceted story. (Aug.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.VOYA
This well-plotted novel pivots around The Book of Torment, a long-lost manuscript by a Jewish physicist who vanished in Auschwitz. The book postulates that good and evil are conditions embedded in the very structure of the physical universe. Supposedly after his son's death, the quantum physicist used his theory of wave mechanics to transport himself—and the Nazi who tortured and murdered his child—to an alternate universe. Fast-forwarding to the present, an orthodox rabbi in Jerusalem pursues coded messages in the Torah, another physicist in Tennessee works on wave mechanics, a tabloid reporter in Florida files a sensational story, and a Marine intelligence officer seeks promising technologies to develop into new weaponry. Their paths converge in Poland, where they all are transported to alternate realities. The rabbi arrives in a cruel, credulous world where the physicist, now a government advisor, is methodically torturing the Nazi who killed his son. The Marine lands in an oppressive world at war. The tabloid reporter arrives in a wild Eden with apparently naively innocent inhabitants. The second physicist ends up in a seemingly empty city where she tries to decipher alien technology in order to return to Earth. The characters are well rounded and credible, while the fast-moving narrative keeps the reader involved with them all on the different worlds where they are trapped. Unfortunately once the alternate worlds are reached, the underlying pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo begins to annoy. One loses a "willing suspension of disbelief" but will keep on reading for the compelling narrative. This book probably will prove popular with senior high students. VOYA Codes: 3Q 4P SA/YA (Readable without serious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult-marketed book recommended for Young Adults). 2003, Del Rey, 484p., Trade pb. Ages 15 to Adult.—Marsha Valance