'powerful' Booklist'riveting' Publishers Weekly'[Zimler is] a master craftsman, and this book is Art... a riveting murder mystery... spectacular' India TodayAfter his Jewish family fled the Catholic Inquisition in Portugal, Tiago Zarco lives a tranquil existence in colonial India, enjoying secret sojourns with his sister into the heady festivities of the local Hindu culture while evading the ruling Portuguese authorities.But as he comes of age in sixteenth-century Goa, Ti struggles to keep the far-reaching influence of the Inquisition from destroying his family and pulling him apart from the Hindu girl he loves. And when an act of betrayal sees his father imprisoned, he is forced to hunt down the traitor and make an unimaginable choice, triggering a harrowing journey that will show him the depths of human depravity and the poisonous salvation of revenge.At once passionate, furious and hopeful, Guardian of the Dawn is both a saga of horrifying religious persecution and a...

'The most remarkable aspect of this brave and engaging novel ... is that zimler manages to make the best-known narrative in western culture a page-turner.' — The GuardianFrom the international best-selling author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon comes a dazzling new work of historical fiction.In the New Testament, we are told that Jesus resurrected a beloved friend named Lazarus from the dead. Missing from the Gospel is a description of how Jesus accomplished this miracle and if he had a special purpose for saving his companion. Acclaimed and best-selling historical novelist Richard Zimler takes up the tale, and through the eyes of the troubled Lazarus, recreates the story of the Passion.Returned to life, Lazarus has difficulties regaining his previous identity and confidence. His experience of death has left him fragile and disoriented. Worse still, he has seen nothing of any afterlife. As Lazarus turns more and more to Jesus for...

Chief Inspector Henrique Monroe of the Lisbon Police Department is not your usual cop. Eccentric, elliptical – and stunningly observant – his peculiar behavior at crime scenes is legendary. But his colleagues put up with it because, in the end, Monroe's the best of the best. But he has a double-sided secret. And when he's called to investigate the brutal slaying of well-connected Portuguese businessman Pedro Coutinho, it's not just the murder case that will unravel – but his own identity, too. As Monroe's investigations lead him deep into a torrid world of shady political corruption and sexual violence, the details of the case trigger memories from his childhood in rural Colorado – memories he has travelled far, and worked hard, to hide. His behavior becomes even more upsetting and inappropriate than usual, and even his family – his wife, his brother and his two young boys – start to fear for the man they thought they knew. Henrique struggles to...

From the internationally bestselling author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon comes a novel of incomparable scope and beauty that takes the reader on an epic journey from war-ravaged nineteenth-century Europe to antebellum America. A bereft child, a freed African slave, and the rich history of Portugal's secret Jews collide memorably in Richard Zimler's mesmerizing novel — a dazzling work of historical fiction played out against a backdrop of war and chaos that unforgettably mines the mysteries of devotion, betrayal, guilt, and forgiveness.

By the author of the critically acclaimed international hits The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and The Warsaw Anagrams, this novel proves Richard Zimler's mastery of the "riveting literary murder mystery" (Independent on Sunday). It's Berlin, 1932. Sophie is a smart and sexually precocious fourteen-year-old coming of age during Hitler's rise to power. Forced to lead a double life when her father and boyfriend become Nazi collaborators, she reserves her dreams of becoming an actress for her beloved elderly neighbor, Isaac Zarco, and his friends, most of whom are Jews working against the government in a secret group called the Ring. When a member is sent to Dachau, she realizes there must be a Nazi traitor in the group. But who? Through successive mysteries, reversals, and surprises —and a race against time —The Seventh Gate builds to a shattering end. In its chilling but sensuous evocation of the time and place, Richard Zimler's novel is a love story...

From Publishers WeeklyActs of cruelty and bigotry and a shocking betrayal propel thiscolorful if overstuffed historical novel by Zimler (The Last Kabbalistof Lisbon), set in 18th- and 19th-century Portugal. John Zarco Stewartis the son of a Scotsman and, through his mother, is descended fromconverted Jews called Marranos who have kept their identity a secretsince the Spanish Inquisition. John grows up in the city of Portounaware of his true heritage until a necromancer curses him when he isnine. In the same year, his best friend drowns before his eyes, and heis only comforted when his father returns from a trip to Africa with aBushman called Midnight, a healer and freed slave who teaches Johnmany things as he grows into manhood. But Midnight, too, meets aviolent end, and when John is 16, Napoleon's armies invade Portugaland John's father is killed defending Porto. Years after the war, Johndiscovers that his father, who he believed was a hero, had committedan unthinkable act of treachery. In attempting to atone for hisfather's misdeed, John travels from Portugal to England thenantebellum America. Zimler packs his tale with exotic detail,describing Porto's bird markets, plantation life in South Carolina andthe lives of Jews in hiding. Though his prose style is somewhat stiffas he attempts to echo 1800s speech patterns (" `Close your goddamnedsnout and run, you little mole!' ") and many of the events in thestory are melodramatic, the narrative has a vintage flavor thatbecomes absorbing.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistZimler, author of the unforgettable Last Kabbalist of Lisbon (1998), about the fourteenth-century massacre of Jews in Portugal, tackles an even more ambitious historical epic this time, beginning in Portugal in the eighteenth century and moving, over the next 25 years, to London, South Carolina, and New York. There are really two novels here, both compelling on their own but awkwardly connected. The first is the story of John Marco Stewart's coming-of-age in Portugal, as he learns of his Jewish heritage (he's related to the hero of Last Kabbalist) and must endure another wave of Christian persecution. The second, detailing Stewart's search for his childhood friend, an African Bushman called Midnight who is sold into slavery, becomes a Roots- like look at the horrors of plantation life in South Carolina. Zimler might have been better off saving the slavery story for its own book, but he remains a superbly talented historical novelist, capable of combining fascinating, broad-canvas glimpses of history with the most intimate portraits of the human heart in turmoil. Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Set in Lisbon in 1506, a debut novel in the tradition of THE NAME OF THE ROSE. When his uncle, a renowned kabbalist, is found dead, Berekiah's investigations lead him into the secret ways in which the Jews sought to hide from their persecutors.

A gripping literary mystery in the tradition of 'The Name of the Rose', set among secret Jews living in Lisbon in the sixteenth century.

It's Autumn 1940. The Nazis seal 400,000 Jews inside a small area of the Polish capital, creating an urban island cut off from the outside world. Erik Cohen, an elderly psychiatrist, is forced to move into a tiny apartment with his niece and his beloved nine-year-old nephew, Adam. One bitterly cold winter's day, Adam goes missing. The next morning, his body is discovered in the barbed wire surrounding the ghetto. The boy's leg has been cut off, and a tiny piece of string has been left in his mouth. Soon, another body turns up – this time a girl's, and one of her hands has been taken. Evidence begins to point to a Jewish traitor luring children to their death…In this profoundly moving and darkly atmospheric historical thriller, the reader is taken into the most forbidden corners of Nazi-occupied Warsaw – as well as into the most heroic places of the heart. Praise for Richard Zimler: 'A riveting literary murder mystery, [The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon] is also a harrowing picture of the persecution of 16th-century Jews and, in passing, an atmospheric introduction to the hermetic Jewish tradition of the Kabbalah' – "Independent on Sunday". 'Zimler [is] a present-day scholar and writer of remarkable erudition and compelling imagination, an American Umberto Eco' – "Spectator". 'Zimler has this spark of genius, which critics can't explain but readers recognise, and which every novelist desires but few achieve' – "Independent". 'Zimler is an honest, powerful writer' – "Guardian".