Jeff Handler was off to Moscow on business. It was stillthe Soviet Union of the Communist Party and the hand of oppression lay heavy onthe land, but Moscow had become a magnet to the diamond trade and Jeff’s employer wanted to develop the new and lucrative source. But before Jeff setout in search of a fortune, a new mission was thrust upon him.

Fifty years before, Jeff’s grandfather had left a pair of tefillin in Stalin’s Moscow, a precious, holy pair of tefillin, and he wanted Jeff to find it and bring it back home.

Find a pair of tefillin in the land of thecommissars after half a century? It couldn’t be done! How many otherneedles was Jeff expected to find in the Kremlin’s haystacks? The old maninsisted; Jeff couldn’t say no. He accepted the mission impossible, and that is when his deadly adventure began.

Jeff’s attempts to trace the missing tefillin attracted the suspicions of the dreaded KGB, the Sovietsecret police. The American snooper must be a spy. “Scruples” were not in their vocabulary, and Jeff was thrust into a panicky fear for his life,all alone in the most hostile environment on earth.

This is the USSR where brave young Jews were returning to the Judaism that had been denied them, but that they were seeking outstealthily and heroically. Jeff discovers them, and in the process discovers aself he never knew.

Chaim Eliav, author of The Persecution and The Runaway, is at the top of his form in this new novel, translated from the Hebrew best-seller. He lures the reader into his webof mystery and suspense. He makes us shiver in the spell of terror and intriguethat envelops Moscow and its fearful Jewish community under the Communistrule.

If you enjoy a thriller and like to match wits with thestalkers and their human prey, this is an adventure you can’t miss.