cover image The Jerusalem Assassin

The Jerusalem Assassin

Joel C. Rosenberg. Tyndale, $27.99 (472p) ISBN 978-1-4964-3784-6

Bestseller Rosenberg’s gripping third Marcus Ryker novel (after 2019’s The Persian Gamble) finds former Secret Service agent Marcus ostensibly working for the Diplomatic Security Service, but in reality he’s employed by the CIA. At a Washington, D.C., diner, Marcus is having breakfast with his new partner, Kailea Curtis, when gunfire from a nearby church propels the two agents into action. Two shooters are taken down, but Marcus’s pastor and close friend, Carter Emerson, is killed. This attack is the kickoff to an intricate plot to kill a succession of top-level American officials culminating in a suicide bombing at a peace conference being held on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, where U.S. president Andrew Clarke is meeting with Israeli premier Reuven Eitan and Saudi King Faisal Mohammed Al Saud for what is being billed as the “greatest diplomatic breakthrough of the century.” Never mind the familiar restoration of the Islamic Caliphate plot. Readers will tear through the final pages to see whether Marcus can once again triumph over evil. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)