Ryder by Nick Pengelley

Published digitally by Alibi/Random House on September 30, 2014

Sir Evelyn Montagu has been murdered. The police turn to Montague's former lover, Ayesha Ryder, for help. A message in Arabic written in Montague's blood and translated by Ryder suggests that the killing had something to do with the Palestinian struggle for a homeland. Montague's mangled corpse stirs memories of Ryder's childhood in Gaza and the torture she endured. Given the bloody message and the fact that Montagu was a prominent Jewish intellectual, the police are inclined to blame Palestinian terrorists for his death. Ryder has her own theories but her investigation is impeded by the British government and nearly everyone else.

Ryder is a "conspiracy hidden by history" story. The conspiracy dates back to T.E. Lawrence and the early days of the Nazi rise to power. It builds upon existing conspiracy theories surrounding Lawrence's death. Lawrence has left behind an improbable coded message and even more improbably (and rather too easily), Ryder decodes it, setting the bulk of the story in motion. While the death of Lawrence conceals two events from the 1930s, Nick Pangelly delves farther into the past by adding the Knights Templar and the biblical Ark to the mix. Those aspects of the plot are puzzling as they add little to the story's development.

To solve the mystery, Ryder needs to follow a number of obscure clues that Lawrence planted -- so obscure, in fact, that I didn't buy Ryder's ability to solve them. Nor did I buy Ryder's repeated escapes from death. Those are common in modern thrillers but Ryder's escapes are too common. On the other hand, the story moves quickly and it always held my interest.

Ryder might not appeal to readers who have strong feelings about the politics of the Middle East. I think the novel takes an evenhanded approach, recognizing that both Palestinians and Israelis have a history of needless violence, but readers who are more passionate about politics than fiction might take a different view. In any event, I enjoy a good story even when I disagree with its political viewpoint, and Ryder tells a reasonably good story. Some of the novel's events are a bit farfetched and the ending is completely implausible, but farfetched plots are standard fare in modern thrillers. The story engaged me sufficiently to trigger my willingness to suspend my disbelief and to earn a modest recommendation.

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