Squadron Leader Leonard is an enthusiastic Arabic student eager to win the hearts and minds of the Arabs in the wake of the disastrous Anglo French foray on the Suez Canal during the 1956 confrontations with Egypt. The mountains of Lebanon and the indomitable wit of its heterogeneous people provide a spirited refuge for his advance Arabic studies. Iraq leads a false trail creating an elusive immutability as a dependable British Ally. Aden is the prelude to his work in the field but also the portent of an ominous future. His final destination further East presents soul searching challenges when he finds his core values tested to the limit in a peasant rebellion against their depraved ruler. It is in this setting that he is tripped up in an ambush where his dramatic riposte leads him to the relentless sequel of trial by Court Martial.

'The twenty-first-century world is in the grip of a feverish malaise prompted by conflict between extremism and nihilism, between gluttony and want, between vacuity and substance. Flames abound unabated in cultural dissensions and strife, but all are bereft of both honour and glory. It is a sad indictment that the very core and essence that raise man above the animal world are only discernible in the marginalised of human society, in the compassion and spirituality of the poor, in the tears of the afflicted and the oppressed. Somehow their cries find glory in another flame. The flame of hope in a higher destiny.' Adrian Lambert is a quiet, unassuming Catholic priest, concerned only with the care of his parish, until one day he is called to appear in a TV debate along with a Muslim professor. Although he realises full well the potential for conflict within this opportunity, he could never have predicted the terrible chain of events that would befall him as a result...

Chapter 19 of Luke's Gospel tells the story of Jesus's meeting with Zacchaeus, the tax collector who had climbed a sycamore tree in Jericho to overcome his shortness and get a better look at Jesus. What Luke doesn't tell the reader is why Zacchaeus sought redemption and a meeting with Jesus. In Zacchaeus, the Crippled Tree-climber, a story of conflict, tyranny and love in the time of Jesus, Edward Lagnado builds a compelling, involving narrative around the bare frame of Luke's Gospel. We meet Zacchaeus himself and see the world through his eyes, the eyes of an outcast, who belongs neither to mainstream Jewish society nor to that of his Roman masters. We travel with him as his youthful openness fades and is replaced with a mercenary cynicism and we witness the salvation he finds in Jesus.