A Long Way to Shiloh - Softcover

Davidson, Lionel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571242898 ISBN 13: 9780571242894

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2011

Synopsis

Casper Laing, the young, fiery and brilliant Professor of Semitic Languages, is asked to decipher an ancient parchment found in Israel. Piecing together its mysterious fragments, his translation soon reveals directions to a shrouded location. Believed to be the secret hiding place of the True Menorah, an ancient and priceless Jewish candelabrum, the Jordanians and Israelis begin a frantic race to claim the prize. Surrounded by violent and treacherous rivals, Casper is enjoined on a deadly adventure deep into the burning Negev desert. A Long Way to Shiloh (1966), Lionel Davidson's third novel, was a Book Society Choice and won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award as well as the Crime Critics' Award for Best Thriller of the Year. Published in the USA as The Menorah Men, it was a no. 1 bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. It further cemented his reputation as one of the pre-eminent genre writers of his generation, and was described by the Guardian as 'first-rate' and by the New York Times as 'a supple delight in which learning, wit and style are beautifully integrated.'

About this title

Review:

As significant as Len Deighton or le Carré in bringing a gritty new realism to the thriller. (Sunday Telegraph)

A Long Way to Shiloh added a new dimension to [Davidson's work]. It had its ceaselessly gripping story - a hunt for the centuries-lost true Menorah from the Temple at Jerusalem - it had its quota of sheer adventure, it had its sharpness of tone that helped to trick you deliciously into full belief, it had its immensely funny passages and it had all that overwhelming vividness. But it had something more as well. It had a setting that was . . . a character in the book in its own right . . . A joy to devour. (H. R. F. Keating The Times)

Long before Indiana Jones, it casts an archaeologist as a hero . . . Davidson is especially good at being realistically funny without in any way losing the tension or the fear. (Peter Hitchens)

A supple delight in which learning, wit and style are beautifully integrated. (New York Times)

Brilliantly entertaining. (Sunday Express)

A very superior thriller indeed. (Daily Mail)

First-rate. (Guardian)

Book Description:

A fiery young professor goes on the hunt for a priceless artefact in this no. 1 bestselling thriller.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0571242898
• ISBN 13: 9780571242894
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 236