The 13th Tribe

Liparulo (Comes a Horseman) opens the Immortal Files series with a bang: an intruder is shot at MicroTech, a supplier to the Pentagon. That intruder is a member of a team of vigilantes, who have amazing technology and even more amazing history: they go back to a time when they worshipped a golden calf while their leader Moses was away. Immortality as the 13th Tribe is the idolaters’ punishment, and in subsequent centuries they try to attain God’s forgiveness—and end their earthly existence—by righteously killing sinners. In present-day Egypt, maimed former Army Ranger Jagger Baird provides security for an archeological dig on Mt. Sinai, and when the Tribe shows up in search of a defector, Baird’s family gets caught in the crossfire. Liparulo has concocted a fast-moving, imaginative narrative that examines moral questions. Not everyone will get or care about the scriptural framework, though it will resonate for the biblically literate, but every reader is in for roller-coaster action, competently done, with a late-breaking major plot curve that leaves the door open for more. (Apr.)