On Mount TBR, actually in my Kindle, but in my to be read list, is a book called THE FIFTH SERVANT by Kenneth Wishnia. It may be a stand alone or may be the beginning of a series featuring Benyamin Ben-Akiva, Talmudic scholar newly arrived from Poland in Prague 1592. Here is a description:
Whoever saves a single life saves the entire world . . .
In 1592, as the Catholic Church and the Protestants battle for control of the soul of Europe, Prague is a relatively safe harbor in the religious storm. Ruled by Emperor Rudolph II, the city is a refuge for Jews who live within the gated walls of its ghetto. But their lives are jeopardized when a young Christian girl is found with her throat slashed in a Jewish shop on the eve of Passover. Charged with blood libel, the shopkeeper and his family are arrested. All that stands in the way of a rabid Christian mob is a clever Talmudic scholar, newly arrived from Poland, named Benyamin Ben-Akiva. Pleading the shopkeeper's innocence to the city's sheriff, Benyamin is given three days to bring the true killer to justice. But the search will not be easy. Hampered by rabbinic law, and with no allies or connections, Benyamin has only his wits, knowledge, and faith to guide him on his quest—a trail that weaves from the city's teeming streets to the quiet of a shul, from the forbidden back rooms of a ghetto brothel to the emperor's lavish palace. The Talmud says many things in life depend on mazl, luck. Fortunately, Benyamin is blessed, for an unlikely group of heroes will risk their own lives to help him discover the truth: Anya, a Christian butcher's daughter; the renowned reformist rabbi Judah Loew; a wise herbal healer known as Kassandra the Bohemian; and even the emperor himself. Who would most profit from the girl's murder—and from having the entire ghetto sealed off? Is the killer a Christian indebted to the girl's apothecary father? Or a messianic Jew bent on the destruction of his people to precipitate the Messiah's coming? The desperate search for answers is complicated by the arrival of a new Holy Inquisitor determined to root out witchcraft and heresy, and reclaim the fractious Bohemian territory for Rome. With time running out, Benyamin must dare the impossible—and commit the unthinkable—to save the Jews of Prague . . . and his own life.
It was published in 2010 and has 400 pages. Here is an excerpt:
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A distant cry woke me
I sat up and looked out the attic window over the sloping rooftops on the north side of Broad Street, which the German-speaking Jews called the Breitgasse. It was too early to see the horizon. The city and the sky were an inseparable mass of darkness, and the scream's dying echoes evaporated into the air, like the breath I could see coming out of my mouth.
I was in bed with two strange men -- the mikveh attendant and the street cleaner -- and the room was damn near freezing. It was spring by the calendar, but it was still winter at heart, and I could feel in my bones that it was going to rain, like it did every year on the Christian holiday of Good Friday. I'd have bet five gold pieces on it, but there weren't any takers, and I didn't have five gold pieces. If you turned out my pockets, all you'd get for your troubles would be a few lonely coppers and some mightly fine lint imported all the way from the Kingdom of Poland.
But something had jarred me awake. Like is says in the Megillas Esther, the king found no rest, so I listened intently, the fog of sleep still swirling around in my head.
Muffled and ghostly, a distant cry floated over the narrow streets of the Jewish Town:
"Gertaaaaaah --!"
Goose bumps rose on my arms, as if the spirit of God had blown right past me and withdrawn from the room. If a Christian child was missing from its bed we were sure to be accused, and all of a sudden I was reduced to being just another Jew in a city that tolerated us, surrounded by an empire full of people who hated us.
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I can't wait to get to it.
Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster
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