It isn't often that a novel manages to encapsulate both the current and the classic---to exist in the present alongside echoes of the past. Jack Engelhard's The Bathsheba Deadline is a notable member of this rare species.
On one hand, a scintillating love triangle based on the biblical story of King David, Uriah and the beautiful and desirable Bathsheba, The Bathsheba Deadline is also a clever and wonderfully perceptive look at contemporary journalism and the post-9/11 political backdrop.
Indeed, political junkies looking for fiction straight out of the headlines need look no further. Engelhard captures a country, and a world, caught up in conflict and haunted by the specter of the unknown. It is a time in which the modern and the ancient all too often collide.
Engelhard also captures the crucial role of journalism amongst it all. The setting for the novel is a fictional daily newspaper called The Manhattan Independent and the lead characters are its managing editor, book editor, and a reporter. As they grapple with news cycles, deadlines, internal power plays, and shifting ethics, it's clear that Engelhard, who has years of newspaper experience under his belt, knows of what he speaks.
Nonetheless, the new media looms large and Engelhard is clearly taking the pulse of the future. He gives credit to the growing influence of online journalism and the blogosphere, or, what he accurately labels in the novel, "Bypass Journalism."
Online journalism is, in fact, starting to supercede the mainstream media and Engelhard knows it. Given that he himself is an accomplished online columnist, his observations are right on the money.
So too is the way in which he weaves fictional characters with real life figures from the world of online journalism. Being a member of the latter group, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself a recurring character, of sorts, in The Bathsheba Deadline. Various fellow travelers in the new media also make appearances in the novel's pages.
But the book has much more to offer than journalism or politics. Filled with romance, sex, witty banter, philosophical reminiscences, heart stopping thrills, a no-nonsense (and, I might add, sexy) lead man and an ever-alluring femme fatale, The Bathsheba Deadline is an entertaining ride.
It's the kind of novel I found myself nodding in knowing agreement and smiling or sighing in shared sentiment throughout. Beyond the great characters, the elegant writing, and the charming slices of life, it touched on so many issues that I found personally and politically relevant that I couldn't help but be drawn in.
And I have no doubt others will do the same.
**This review appears as the book's Foreword.
