The Last Testament

April 2003: as the Baghdad Museum of Antiquities is looted, a teenage Iraqi boy finds an ancient clay tablet in a long-forgotten vault. He takes it and runs off into the night ...

Several years later, at a peace rally in Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister is about to sign a historic deal with the Palestinians. A man approaches from the crowd and seems to reach for a gun - bodyguards shoot him dead. But in his hand was a note, one he wanted to hand to the prime minister.

The shooting sparks a series of tit-for-tat killings which could derail the peace accord. Washington sends for trouble-shooter and peace negotiator Maggie Costello, after she thought she had quit the job for good. She follows a trail that takes her from Jewish settlements on the West Bank to Palestinian refugee camps, where she discovers the latest deaths are not random but have a distinct pattern. All the dead men are archaeologists and historians - those who know the buried secrets of the ancient past.

Menaced by fanatics and violent extremists on all sides, Costello is soon plunged into high-stakes international politics, the worldwide underground trade in stolen antiquities and a last, unsolved riddle of the Bible.

About the Author

Sam Bourne is a pseudonym for Jonathan Freedland, an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. He writes a weekly column in the Guardian, as well as a monthly piece for the Jewish Chronicle. He also presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series, The Long View. In the annual What the Papers Say awards of 2002 Jonathan Freedland was named Columnist of the Year and praised for his incisive, original, strong and very outspoken views. He lives in London with his wife and their two children.