Set amid the current tension and violence of the Middle East, Nicholas Mosley’s new novel features over a half-dozen characters searching for ways to quell society’s self-destructive impulses. As the story develops, the actions and aspirations of these characters—which include a Muslim student working on the deadliest of biological weapons, a young Israeli girl trapped in a temple’s ruins, and a middle-aged ex-television-guru who has mysteriously disappeared—create a moral and philosophical system illustrating the roles chance and coincidence play in our lives.

Concluding in September 2001, Inventing God is a fascinating and highly relevant new novel from a previous winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year award.