Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Friday, April 1, 2016

TV Seasons Returning This Month

April seems to be the time for a lot of my favorite TV series to return with new seasons. Banshee is tops among them, but others are Game of Thrones, Outlander, and Silicon Valley. I have blogged before how Banshee had become my all time favorite TV show. It surpassed Star Trek, tos, in its third season. So I'm looking forward to season 4 this month.

I've been up and down on Game of Thrones. Sure, it's interesting, set in an alternate universe of sorts, certainly not the universe in which we exist. But that's all good. I haven't agreed with the story lines. In fact, I have hated some of the turns the story took, and I'm not just talking about Ned Stark's execution, and the Red Wedding. I didn't like those either by the way.

Outlander has been good, but there's a huge caveat in that statement. First of all, I do like the lead character. A woman, too. I like that she's strong, without being the type of "strong" that means she can beat everyone up. You don't see her beating seasoned soldiers to a pulp, like we had to see in other shows that featured strong women. No. She's a different kind of strong, but no less strong than your beating people up kind of strong. And it's good.

What I couldn't buy into with this show was the homosexual tormentor. In the eighteenth century no less. A British army officer no less. This guy hates a Scottish dude, so what does he do? He forces the dude to have sex with him. It's like, wtf? Talk about weird. If a guy is homosexual, well, okay, but then he tortures the dude he's got the hots for until he finally gets the guy to have sex with him? That was complete and total crap. But, whatever. The wife likes the show.

Silicon Valley is a funny show that takes place right here where I grew up and still live. Yeah, I grew up in the Silicon Valley, but that was before it became the Silicon Valley. But I'm still here, and it's now the Silicon Valley. Many of the scenes in this show are places with which I am very familiar. It's cool, too, to see your old stomping grounds as the setting for a TV show. And it's a funny show. As a rule, I don't go for comedies, but there are exceptions to that rule, and Silicon Valley is one of them.

Sure, there's a lot of other shows coming this spring, either new shows starting up or shows returning with a new season. But I don't watch them. Maybe I will one day. Maybe I won't. We'll see.

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