Jews Under Attack in ‘The Insider’

I was really excited when asked to review the new Harry Stern novel, “The Insider,” a sequel to his first novel, “My Brother’s Keeper,” featuring the return of Joshua Canaan and Leora Bargal, two of our favorite Israeli Mossad agents from “My Brother’s Keeper.”

This time they are called to action, away from their Israeli homeland, to assist the New York Police Department, along with the FBI, to thwart a bomb attack being planned by Iran’s Quds Force Unit 840 on a high-level meeting with more than 200 prominent Jewish philanthropists and nonprofit executives at the 92nd Street Y designed to inflict maximum damage. This is all in retaliation to Iran’s proclamation of Israel’s assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, use of the Stuxnet computer virus to damage centrifuges, and the targeted killings of military leaders.

The territorial relationship between the NYPD, the FBI group based in New York, and the Israeli Mossad agents was expertly crafted throughout the story. Each group had its own agenda and idea on how to stop the terrorists. The one commonality they all exhibited was the hate of antisemitism against the Jewish targets. This brought them together to combat the enemy, breaking the territorial boundaries surrounding the different law enforcement agencies. The one obstacle the FBI faced was support from the top in Washington, D.C., who did not see the immediate threat at hand as a high priority, especially when the Attorney General was no friend of the Jews and had little use for Israel. Thankfully, the FBI agents working with the New York police and the Mossad agents were willing to risk their jobs to do the right thing.

The relationship between New York detective Alex Ramirez and his Israeli wife, Maayan, was also full of surprises. Detective Ramirez knew his wife had some Israeli connections prior to a trip to Israel with her to discuss the threat in New York. To his complete surprise, he finds out his wife was one of Mossad’s top analysts at some point in her life. She refers to her role with Mossad as a “never-ending connection.” Her role and background were critical to the mission at hand as the story kept unfolding.

While Stern’s previous novel took us all over the world, this story centered around New York City where there is a very large Jewish population. If you wanted to inflict the maximum damage against the Jewish people in the United States, then New York would be the ultimate target, especially when it was the site for a large Jewish meeting. To divert attention away from New York, the enemy also staged attacks in other major U.S. cities with sizable Jewish populations.

From start to finish, this was a very hard book to put down. It kept me on the edge page after page with many twists and turns. With antisemitism around the world at its highest peak in decades, it makes me wonder how fictitious and far from the truth this story can actually be. Just look at all the anti-Israel/pro-Palestine demonstrations taking place today across our college campuses in the United States. I can only imagine how many groups and sleeper cells are lying in wait plotting to attack at a moment’s notice.

Thankfully, our law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world work diligently each day to prevent such heinous acts of violence from occurring. We must never let our guard down and always remain vigilant. Let’s hope Stern has Joshua Canaan and Leora Bargal called back into action in some future story.