Halidom

Iranian archaeology professor Ezekiel Darvish, the protagonist of this implausible thriller from Shobin (The President’s Doctor), publicly asserts that the Quran may have resulted from the Prophet Muhammad’s ingestion of alkaloids in a hallucinogenic plant, despite the extreme sensitivity of his country’s religious leaders to even the appearance of heresy. That suggestion naturally lands Darvish in prison, though he’s freed shortly after the chief of the Directorate of Security Investigation discovers that the academic is a previously unknown son of Ayatollah Khomeini. Darvish goes on to look into evidence of the historicity of Jesus and Solomon’s Temple in the belief that what he finds could potentially bring lasting peace to the region. Attempts on his life and international intrigue ensue. Sloppy details—few would agree Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was “an ultra-right-wing conservative”—undermine suspending disbelief. Gratuitous sex scenes and cumbersome prose (“Over his de rigueur open-collar, short-sleeve white shirt, Wertheim’s nicotine-stained fingers constantly kept an unfiltered cigarette beside his face”) don’t help. Dan Brown this is not. Agent: John Silbersack, Bent Agency. (Oct.)