Title: The Final Reckoning
Author: Sam Bourne
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: December 7, 2010
Hardcover: 432 pages
ISBN: 978-0061875748
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Thriller, Mystery

From the Publisher:

From the number one international bestselling author of The Righteous Men and The Last Testament comes a chilling thriller about a clandestine brotherhood and a sixty-year-old secret—the last great mystery of World War II.

Tom Byrne has come a long way since his days as an idealistic young lawyer. Now he’ll work for anyone—as long as the money’s right. So when a UN official asks him to take on a dubious job, he accepts. A suspected suicide bomber shot by UN security staff has turned out to be a harmless old man, and Tom must placate the family. But it soon emerges that the victim was not quite the innocent man he seemed to be.

Alongside the dead man’s daughter, Rebecca, Tom discovers a hidden brotherhood united in a worldwide mission that has caused hundreds of unexplained deaths. Pursued by those ready to kill to stop him, Tom must unlock a secret buried for more than sixty years—the last great secret of the Second World War.

Based on the true story of a group of Holocaust survivors who sought revenge for Nazi crimes, The Final Reckoning is an atmospheric, emotionally engaging, and twisting thriller that moves at light speed from the first page to the last.

My Review:

The Final Reckoning by Sam Bourne is an intriguing mixture of historical fact turned into fiction, a mystery within a mystery, riveting, thrilling, and suspenseful. A suspected terrorist is murdered on UN territory and Tom Byrne is called in to follow the NYPD investigation and more importantly to placate the murdered man’s family. The case appears straightforward, misinformation led to the murder of an innocent 77-year-old, but not everything is as it first appears. To further complicate the situation for the UN, the murdered man is not only a holocaust surviour, but also a true hero for the résistance. Again, not all is as it appears as Byrne learns more about the victim, Gerald Merton, born Gershon Matzkin. Bourne creates an intense setting, fast-moving plot, and a cast of truly brilliant characters along with the words left behind of the deceased, his testament to what happened to himself, his family and the Jews in the 1940s and the group Matzkin joined after the war. The Final Reckoning is a political thriller intermixed with historical fact, fictionalised enough to create a brilliantly intense page-turner, which I for one was unable to set down. Bourne will take the reader on an intense political thrill ride from the first page until the very end. After the book is concluded, Bourne points out which parts are fact and which were fictionalised and why. I enjoyed this book immensely and not only found an author worth following but also learned a bit more about the resistance movement that I was not aware of before reading this book. I would not hesitate to recommend The Final Reckoning to any and all readers.

About the Author:

Sam Bourne is the literary pseudonym of Jonathan Freedland, an award-winning British journalist and broadcaster. He is a weekly columnist for the Guardian (UK), having served as that paper’s Washington correspondent. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and the New Republic. He is a regular contributor to the Jewish Chronicle (UK) and presents BBC Radio 4′s contemporary history series The Long View.

Bourne is the author of the New York Times and number one UK bestseller The Righteous Men, which has been translated into twenty-eight languages, and The Last Testament. He has also written two nonfiction works, Jacob’s Gift and Bring Home the Revolution. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

For more information about the author or his works, please visit his website.

I received a complimentary copy ofThe Final Reckoning by Sam Bourne from Harper Collins to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.