Damascus Gate

`At once religious discussion, love story, mystery, delivered with the verve of an airport thriller . . . The central character of this book is Jerusalem; the book reeks of its myriad mythologies and beliefs . . . Damascus Gate is an amazing read . . . a rare and remarkable feast of writing’ Scotland on Sunday `The heir of Conrad, Hemingway and, crucially, Graham Greene, Stone is at his best when his characters are in extremis . . . the scenes of violent confrontation could not have been rendered more powerfully by any other writer . . . formidable’ Sunday Telegraph `A book that is not afraid to take on the big themes like faith, faction, spirituality, tribalism, identity and injustice . . . It is also an extraordinary treatment of Jerusalem itself . . . With Stone, it has found the kind of imaginative interpreter that every city waits for’ Sunday Times `Writing this good should be engraved on tablets of stone in letters of fire and blood. Fantastic’ Uncut `Stone has a journalist’s eye for detail, but a novelist’s eye for irony . . . Damascus Gate is rich with theme and atmosphere . . . few writers could even attempt to capture, as Stone does, both the intense, combative spirituality of Jerusalem and the festering menace of Gaza’ Esquire