One of America's most important novelists (New York Times), the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The History of Love, conjures an achingly beautiful and breathtakingly original novel about personal transformation that interweaves the stories of two disparate individuals, an older lawyer and a young novelist, whose transcendental search leads them to the same Israeli desert. Jules Epstein, a man whose drive, avidity, and outsized...

When feisty young Tsippy Silberberg of the curious eating habits receives word from Tel Aviv that a distant aunt has left her a mysterious inheritance-an incomplete fish service in a battered brown suitcase-she decides to break her rigid routine and go collect it in person. But before she is even able to settle into her hotel room, an odd old woman bangs on her door and invites herself in. Her name is Bella Kugelman, and she is determined to talk....

An unnamed narrator writes a letter to an old college friend, Adam, with whom he has been staying since his abrupt return to the States from Israel. Now that the narrator is moving on to a new location, he finally reveals the events that led him to Adam's door, set in motion by a chance encounter with Uzi, a spice merchant whose wares had developed a cult following. From his first meeting with Uzi, the narrator is overwhelmed by an animal attraction...

"When an Israeli tech executive disappears from Charles de Gaulle airport with a woman in red at his side, logic dictates youthful indiscretion rael is on a state of high alert nonetheless. And for Commissaire L�eger of the Paris Police Force, all coincidences are suspect. When a second young Israeli from the flight is kidnapped, this time at gunpoint from his hotel room, his suspicions are confirmed--and a diplomatic crisis looms. As the race to...