Picture in the Sand

August 1, 2022

In the New York Times best-selling Benedict's The Mitford Affair, Nancy Mitford must choose between family and country when she realizes to her shock that two of her sisters support the Nazis' rise to power. Billed as an historical thriller (with the accent on historical), the Edgar Award--winning Blauner's Picture in the Sand tells the story of Egyptian American businessman Ali Hassan, who shares his secret activist past with a grandson now in Syria as a holy warrior, hoping to dissuade him from extremist actions (75,000-copy first printing). By the author of the internationally best-selling The German Girl, Correa's The Night Travelers moves from Ally Keller's struggles to get biracial daughter Lilith out of 1930s Berlin to Lilith's experiences during the Cuban revolution to Nadine's work in late 1980s Berlin to honor the remains of victims of the Nazis even as daughter Luna encourages her to investigate her own past. American Book Award--winning, Orange Prize short-listed Divakaruni's Independence tracks the fate of three Indian sisters--ambitious Priya, gorgeous Deepa, and devout Jamina--who are torn apart as the 1947 Partition looms (50,000-copy first printing). Saab's Daughters of Victory, successor to her well-received debut, The Last Checkmate, follows Svetlana Petrova from revolutionary idealism in 1917 Russia to disillusionment with Bolshevism to concern for a granddaughter aching to join the resistance as Germans invade the Soviet Union in 1941 (100,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing). A debut from Black Canadian Thomas, In the Upper Country opens in 1800s Dunmore, Canada, terminus of the Underground Railroad, where imbued Black journalist Lensinda Martin urges a new arrival who's just killed a slave hunter to give testimony before her arrest; instead, she proposes that they trade stories, with the resulting narrative a braided-together history of Black and Indigenous peoples in North America.

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October 1, 2022
Political upheaval in Egypt circa 1954 threatens the location shooting of The Ten Commandments--and the life of a young local hired as Cecil B. DeMille's personal assistant. A film buff, Ali Hassan is initially thrilled to work for DeMille, whose swan song this biblical epic proves to be. But his enthusiasm is dimmed by the director's imperious and temperamental ways. And his safety is compromised by the violent aims of the Muslim Brotherhood extremist group, which targets newly installed Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser for his anti-theocratic ways and for cozying up to the blasphemous Hollywoodians. One of the group's outspoken members is Sherif, Ali's close but combative cousin, who pressures Ali into abetting a planned terrorist attack on the film set. After it becomes known that Ali, as DeMille's driver, ran over an influential imam to escape a demonstrating mob in Cairo, it's only a matter of time before he faces some very bad music. He ends up spending many years in prison, where he's beaten and tortured by an escaped Nazi welcomed into Egypt--supposedly "a new beacon of liberty"--for such purposes. The book is presented as Ali's firsthand account of his experiences, written years later for his radicalized American grandson, who sporadically emails his responses to it from jihadi training grounds unknown. These interruptions prove superficial in linking fundamentalism past and present and examining religious belief, but otherwise this departure by Blauner from his urban thrillers--including Sunrise Highway (2018) and Proving Ground (2017)--is great storytelling, a coming-of-age tale with a love story at its heart. The drama is leavened with wry accounts of the mercurial DeMille and his buff star, Charlton "Chuck" Heston. A Jewish documentary filmmaker thought to be an Israeli spy is straight out of classic noir. All in all, an inspired idea skillfully executed. A gripping, hard-to-put-down thriller.

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Starred review from November 28, 2022
In 1954 Egypt, the long-shot dream of a career in Hollywood for young Ali Hassan, the protagonist of this outstanding thriller from Blauner (Slow Motion Riot), seems on the cusp of realization. Legendary film director Cecil B. DeMille has arrived with his cast and crew to shoot scenes for his epic, The Ten Commandments, and has hired Ali as an assistant. The country has just fallen under the control of secularist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, and when the Muslim Brotherhood targets DeMille’s production as a means to discredit the new regime, Ali is swept up in the resultant intrigue and violence. Entangled in Nasser’s crackdown, he spends the next 17 years in prison. Blauner tells this suspenseful story within the narrative framework of e-mails exchanged between Ali, now an old man in poor health, and his grandson, Alex, who has left their home in the United States to join modern-day Middle Eastern terrorists. Ali offers his own life story as an attempt to persuade his grandson against making the same mistakes he did at that age. This is historical fiction at its absolute best—heartfelt, anchored in real events, and extremely well told. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management.

December 1, 2022
Cairo, 1954. Hollywood is coming to Egypt to film The Ten Commandments, and 24-year-old Ali Hassan lands a job as personal assistant to its renowned director, Cecil B. DeMille. More than four decades later, he relates this story through a series of messages to his grandson, who leaves his life in America to join terrorists fighting in Syria. Ali's hope is that the surprising parallels between their journeys will show his grandson the potential cost of his actions, and that learning about Ali's eventual imprisonment and the loss of his eye will prove how difficult escape will be. After Ali drives over an imam while trying to help DeMille escape a threatening crowd, he is enlisted by his radical cousin into attempting to sabotage the film. With his grandson's irregular messages offering disturbing illumination into his own holy war, Ali's story powerfully illustrates the intensity of a young man's yearning to be part of a larger cause and the dangerous paths of espionage, assassination, and betrayal it threatens to lead him down. Blauner's resolution, however, offers welcome hope for redemption.

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