Wages of Empire by Michael J. Cooper
What’s It About?
“Historic fiction followers with a style for journey and the esoteric will certainly take pleasure in Wages of Empire and search for its deliberate sequel, Crossroads of Empire.”
Summer season, 1914. The world teeters on the sting of struggle as an eclectic assortment of archaeologists, Arab freedom fighters, temple guardians, treasure seekers, Zionists, and one runaway teenage boy desirous to combat within the “Nice Struggle for Civilization” start their disparate journeys all resulting in Ottoman Palestine and Jerusalem — the place a showdown is brewing over an historic Biblical artifact in Michael J. Cooper’s thrilling novel Wages of Empire, now out there on audiobook.
On sabbatical in Cedar Metropolis, Utah, Clive Robert Sinclair, Oxford professor of Close to Japanese languages and archaeology, and his sixteen-year-old son, Evan, are nonetheless marooned on separate islands of grief two years after Janet Sinclair’s loss of life in childbirth. Rumors of struggle in Europe ignite Evan’s adventurous spirit, and when England declares struggle on Germany, he heads to Europe to hitch the British Expeditionary Power (BEF), little realizing what he’s signing up for. Clive will mud off his personal Boer Struggle navy credentials and return to London to serve British navy intelligence while looking for clues on Evan’s whereabouts, enlisting the assistance of his colleagues (and historic figures) T.E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell.
Numerous Characters Converge in Wartime Jerusalem
In the meantime, in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, pissed off treasure seeker Montagu Walker accepts a suggestion to work for Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm I and hold the British and French from getting a toehold there. Certainly, the Kaiser Wilhelm storyline has Da Vinci Code vibes as Cooper performs up the German king’s “obsession” with Jerusalem and discovering the Spear of Future (a legendary lance stated to have pierced the aspect of the crucified Christ). Cooper’s model of Wilhelm, replete with spittle-flecked monologues and quack racial theories, reads proto-Hitler. However Walker additionally wants the Kaiser’s assist to get across the mysterious Guardians of the Temple Mount who’ve thus far stopped his each effort to excavate beneath the sacred floor.
Two of these Guardians — Gunter von Wertheimer and Rahman B’shara — are fellow archaeologists on the École Biblique in Jerusalem who’re alerted to the presence of their previous nemesis Walker. They need to keep one step forward of German conscription officers searching for Gunter and handle illness, persecution, and homelessness as they search security in a world turned the other way up. With Gunter, Rahman, and Jewish archaeologist David Nathanson, Cooper creates the right foil to Wilhelm’s unhinged racial and non secular preconceptions: Christian, Jew, and Muslim work collectively and defend each other and their kids as armies march and borders are erased.
A Story of Journey and Historic Intrigue
Cooper is just not stingy with concepts or characters, as one other subplot imagines the beginnings of the Arab Revolt with Faisal bin Hussein, son of the sharif and emir of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali Al-Hashimi. The Arabs need independence from Ottoman rule however await the Turks to hitch the struggle on Germany’s aspect earlier than revolting. In search of allies, Faisal plods by means of the Meccan desert by way of camelback to persuade the Bedouin — clans and tribes like fingers on a hand — to hitch the combat and understand a brand new future by means of power:
“… he knew that when the time was proper, the separate fingers would draw right into a fist, and collectively they might smite the Turks. Collectively they might achieve their freedom.” The primary ebook in a projected sequence, Wages of Empire brings collectively this vast forged of characters and assuredly manages a number of viewpoints and historic occasions — all whereas maintaining a younger man’s coming of age at its coronary heart. Historic fiction followers with a style for journey and the esoteric will certainly take pleasure in Wages of Empire and search for its deliberate sequel, Crossroads of Empire.
About Michael J. Cooper:
A local of Berkeley, California, Michael J. Cooper emigrated to Israel after ending highschool and lived in Jerusalem in 1966, the final yr the town was divided between Israel and Jordan. Over the subsequent decade, he travelled all through the area, labored fitfully as an actor and musician on stage and Israel TV, studied at Hebrew College in Jerusalem, and graduated from Tel Aviv College Medical College. After a forty-year profession as a pediatric heart specialist in Northern California, he continues to return to Israel and the West Financial institution about twice a yr to volunteer his companies to Palestinian kids who lack ample entry to care. When not touring, he lives along with his spouse within the East Bay with a neurotic golden retriever and a spoiled rotten cat. Three grownup kids often drop by.
In mid-life, Cooper turned from writing medical journal peer-review articles to historic fiction, (although some counsel that he all the time wrote fiction. However they might be unsuitable). His debut novel, Foxes within the Winery, set in 1948 Jerusalem, gained the grand prize within the 2011 Indie Publishing Contest. His second novel, The Rabbi’s Knight, set within the Holy Land on the twilight of the Crusades in 1290, was finalist for the Chaucer Award for historic fiction. His just-completed third novel, Wages of Empire, is ready in Europe and the Center East throughout WWI and gained the 2022 CIBA Rossetti Award for YA fiction together with first-place honors for the 2022 CIBA Hemingway award for wartime historic fiction. All three novels stand-alone, although they’re related by the widespread threads of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the St. Clair/Sinclair bloodline and the subversive notions of coexistence and peace.
Publish Date: November 30, 2023
Style: Historic Fiction
Writer: Michael J. Cooper
Web page Depend: 392 pages
Writer: Koehler Books
ISBN: 979-8888241868
