Best Seller
The Invisible Line
Hardcover
$30.00
Available on Apr 06, 2027 | 336 Pages
In this audacious historical novel, an American spy agrees to help the victors divide up the spoils of World War I by literally drawing the new borders of the Middle East—only to discover that the relic he holds has far greater power than he could have imagined.
In 1917, Elias Winters arrives in Egypt with a mysterious key entrusted to him by an old-boy network of Western power brokers. He is tasked to use the key to draw the new negotiated border in Ottoman Palestine. But he soon discovers he serves a different mission for the “Old Ones”—an ancient society known for their extraordinary longevity, strength, and ability to draw power from the land.
Elias is determined to harness the key’s powers to become one of the Old Ones himself. However, he is not alone in his quest to shape the region in the aftermath of war. Dr. Minna Weizmann believes the key can transform Ottoman Palestine into a Jewish homeland, while Dawood al-Haddad, a young Muslim university student hired to assist Elias, senses the key’s dark potential for the Arab nationalist cause.
Competing against others drawn to the key’s mysterious power, Elias, Minna, and Dawood find themselves in a race to finish the line and seize control of history itself. In a region on the verge of transformation and upheaval, The Invisible Line captures a moment of historic turmoil and the lengths we’ll go in the pursuit of power.
In 1917, Elias Winters arrives in Egypt with a mysterious key entrusted to him by an old-boy network of Western power brokers. He is tasked to use the key to draw the new negotiated border in Ottoman Palestine. But he soon discovers he serves a different mission for the “Old Ones”—an ancient society known for their extraordinary longevity, strength, and ability to draw power from the land.
Elias is determined to harness the key’s powers to become one of the Old Ones himself. However, he is not alone in his quest to shape the region in the aftermath of war. Dr. Minna Weizmann believes the key can transform Ottoman Palestine into a Jewish homeland, while Dawood al-Haddad, a young Muslim university student hired to assist Elias, senses the key’s dark potential for the Arab nationalist cause.
Competing against others drawn to the key’s mysterious power, Elias, Minna, and Dawood find themselves in a race to finish the line and seize control of history itself. In a region on the verge of transformation and upheaval, The Invisible Line captures a moment of historic turmoil and the lengths we’ll go in the pursuit of power.
Author
Michael David Lukas
Winner of the Sami Rohr Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Prix Interallie, Michael David Lukas is the author of The Last Watchman of Old Cairo and The Oracle of Stamboul. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, VQR, The Common, and the Georgia Review. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop, he has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, a Rotary Scholar in Tunisia, a staff member at UC Berkeley’s Center for Middle East Studies, and a visiting scholar at the Graduate Theological Union. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University.
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