The Ezekiel Option »

Joel C. Rosenberg is the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Jihad, The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, The Copper Scroll, and Epicenter, with 1.5 million copies in print. A communications strategist based in Washington, D.C., he has worked with some of the world’s most influential and provocative leaders, including Steve Forbes, Rush Limbaugh, former Israeli deputy prime minister Natan Sharansky, and former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Once a political columnist for World magazine, he now writes commentaries for National Review as well as a weekly e-mail update known as “Flash Traffic” for business and political leaders. A front-page Sunday New York Times profile called him a “force in the capital.” He has also been profiled by the Washington Times and the Jerusalem Post and has been interviewed on ABC’s Nightline, CNN Headline News, FOX News Channel, The History Channel, MSNBC, The Rush Limbaugh Show, and The Sean Hannity Show.

When Russia's richest oil baron is killed, Moscow suddenly teeters on the verge of political chaos. Tehran races to complete its nuclear arsenal. Washington finds herself dangerously divided from her European allies. A new evil looms on the horizon. A dictator is rising in Russia. Iran is feverishly building nuclear weapons. A new axis of evil is emerging, led by Moscow and Tehran. And Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy, two senior White House advisors, find themselves facing the most chilling question of their lives: is the world rushing to the brink of an apocalypse prophesied more than 2,500 years ago?

"If you only read one book this year . . . this is it!" —Rush Limbaugh, New York Times best-selling author

Publishers Weekly

Tyndale House hopes to repeat its megasuccess with Left Behind by signing Rosenberg, an evangelical Christian from an Orthodox Jewish background, for a third apocalyptic novel. Rosenberg sets his events several years after 9/11 and picks up the plot line from his The Last Days. A coup in Russia may have left beautiful CIA agent Erin McCoy dead, even as her fiance, presidential adviser Jon Bennett, watches his "Oil for Peace" initiative fall apart. As Russia prepares for war, Israel faces annihilation and Babylon regains its original splendor, Dr. Eliezer Mordechai, former head of the Mossad and now a Christian, reflects, "The Scriptures were coming alive." He prepares a 37-page Bible-based brief known as "The Ezekiel Option," which postulates that supernatural powers will eliminate Israel's enemies. The number of exploding vehicles and dead bodies will have a "been there, done that" feel to readers of previous Rosenberg novels, but the story turns aggressively Christian, incorporating lengthy references to scriptural prophecy and the Antichrist, as well as conversion scenes. There's some heavy violence, including a beating, an elderly woman run over by a tank and a severed finger, but the book is better written and more complex than Left Behind, to which it will inevitably be compared. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.