Zimler's book is a triumph of modern fiction: an absolutely gripping narrative of love and loss set against a backdrop of fantastic historic drama. Zimler rises to the incredible quality of his bestselling The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon. The characters are rich and fully realized, and their conflicts are vital and real. They grow throughout the book, so that by the end you feel a real intimacy with them. The period setting is elegantly realized; you feel as though you are living in these far-away times, going to the bird market, observing the early forms of racism, encountering the ravages of the Inquisition. This is a story of family too, and the close bonds of the central characters are extremely vivid. I loved this book. Read it at once.

As an avid reader who has been ritually disappointed by the so-called "literary" sensations of the past year, it is a true joy to find a book with a heart and soul, written by an author at the top of his game.This mesmerizing, beautifully written tale of the friendship between a freed African slave and a bereaved child will make you weep on every page, such is the realism of emotion Zimler packs into each page. He is distinctly not an author given to mawkish sentimentality. This is the unputdownable book of the year that thoroughly deserves a wider audience. It is, as the flap copy suggests, an out-and-out masterpiece.

In 1800 Porto, Portugal, the memories of the Spanish Inquisition linger as Jews hide their faith to avoid a repeat of their previous fate. In this environs nine-year-old John Zarco Stewart becomes a friend with slightly older street person Daniel. John soon learns that his family is Jewish, which is why they are shunned by much of the townsfolk and fail to practice in their home. Violeta joins the two boys, but the guys one day find marks on her body as if somone battered her. She insists she fell, but her two pals think her odious uncle assaulted her.

When Daniel drowns and Violeta's family removes her from Porto, John feels bored and guilty because he thinks he caused misfortune for his two only pals until his papa brings home a new companion, African Bushman Midnight, who turns into a friend and mentor. As John becomes an adult, he marries, but a secret from the past propels him to journey to America where he starts a new adventure with a black woman.

HUNTING MIDNIGHT is a biographical fiction that consists of two stories. The first part of the book centers on the coming of age of the narrator. This segment is insightful as it provides depth to life on the Iberian peninsular during the Napoleonic Era, but also moves forward slowly as the misadventures seem somewhat trivial. The latter half of the book focuses on adventures of John the adult in the Americas. This is quite exciting as John adapts to a strange new world. Richard Zimmler returns his audience to Portugal three centuries after his delightful THE LAST KABBALIST OF LISBON with a strong historical tale.

Harriet Klausner

After reading all of Chaim Potok's books, I decided this book would give another perspective on study of Kabbalah. Because many Jewish scholars have opposed study through the centuries of these mystical writings, it was fun to return to 1506 when visions and talismans were commonly believed to work.

The vivid descriptive language used throughout this story can be gruesome at times, but it puts the reader in Lisbon at the time of the forced conversions of Jews.

The mystery is fun to watch unfold, but the characters are a challenge to track. Because they have both Jewish names and New Christian names, it can be challenging to remember which member of the group had the scar where and what his two names are . . .

If you're tired of John Grisham's predictability, try a new environment, an historical setting, and a mystical culture for the setting of a good mystery.

Zimler's fascinating story is set in 1506, during the massacre of Jews in Lisbon. Berekiah Zarco is one of the New Christians, those Jews forced to convert to Christianity, but Zarco and his family and friends also secretly practice the Jewish faith. As the massacre overwhelms the city, Zarco discovers his uncle and an unknown woman murdered in the family cellar, locked from the inside. Obsessed with finding those responsible, Zarco, along with his former lover Farid, risks his safety hunting for clues. The two also brave the maelstrom of atrocities to find their missing relatives and friends. I found it difficult to connect with the characters at the beginning, but as the story wound itself into patterns, the book became hard to put down. I was rather surprised at the untrumpeted homosexuality of Farid, which is mentioned a few times in the book. It's treated as part of the texture of his personality and nothing more, which is as it ought to be. I think it's a great book overall, although the parallels to the Holocaust and other instances of intolerance aren't as poignant and clearcut as one would think. Still, it's highly recommended, especially for its historical detailings.

The inquisition came to Portugal later than it did to Spain. Jews were not tossed out of Lisbon as they were out of Madrid. Not right away. Prior to exile there was a period of " grace ", in which the Jews were given twenty years to completely convert to Chrisitianity. This period was characterized by pogroms, by terror, by ostracism and prejudice. In Lisbon as well as in Madrid (as in Germany some years later) Jews who had been valued members of a community rapidly became oppressed, feared, and despised. In a time of drought and plague, it was easy to blame the Jews, and also easy to burn them in huge bonfires, even those Jews who had converted to Christianity. Many secretly remained Jews, practicing their religion, and many of those who practiced studied Kabala, which is one of the roots of neo-platonism, and of the renaissance, and the source of a rich mystic tradition that continues to this day. Richard Zimmler's book is a wonderfully rich depiction of these terrible times. It is also a thrilling mystery, and an adventure story of the first order. And on every page, unobtrusively, without rancor, pretension, or arrogance, it meditates on the hard questions of life: how can GD tolerate a world of such cruelty; how can a world of such cruelty shine with such beauty; why is the world so constantly in need of redemption, and how is it that simple kindness and the complex passion for truth redeem it over and over again at every moment? Books, brothers, fathers and wives, masters and disciples, artists and thieves, murderers and schlemiels, illuminated manuscripts and minds illuminated by winged visions; all these things fill this book with unceasing interest and beauty. No wonder it's out of print.

The characters of the Angelic Darkness caught my eye when I was actually looking for the Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, absent from my book store. I was looking for stories about Sephardic Jews and it was recommended to me. The Angelic Darkness had a continuous thread. I thought for awhile that the characters in Bill's book about the Inquisition would reappear as promised. The ending gave me the impression that Zimler stopped writing his book and started telling about his love affair. They were only scantily connected. At first, I thought this was a weird, spiritual, loose kind of book. Then, at the end, I thought it was just a weak story by a good writer who wasn't writing well at the time. Proves anyone can get a book published.

Throughout history there have been legends of angels who exist within a kind of parallel reality, a space-time warp. Literally, this is the story of such an angel in San Francisco in the early '80's who enters a man's life and catalyzes his transformation. In the wake of separation from his wife, Bill Ticino, the central character, is depressed and haunted by memories of an abusive father. He advertises for a housemate. An enigmatic Brazilian, Peter, moves into his house along with a magical hoopoe bird, Maria. He introduces Bill to an entire supporting castof charactes: Mara, a Brazilian singer, Rain,a Tenderloin prostitute, William, Peter's German Jewish adoptive father. As in all legends, Peter and the bird vanish overnight when his mission is complete. The morgue where Bill last saw Rain, is now a meat-packing plant. Mara's house is occupied by a stranger who never heard of her. The Brazilian Consulate where Peter worked has no record of his existence. Metaphorically, this is the story of a man's inward wanderings, ofhis encountering darkness--Jungian shadow--and integrating it within himself. This includes realization of the homosexual componenet of his own being at a time when thedarkness of AIDS is spreading over the world. Zimler's writing is engrossing and immediate. The story draws one in with its nests of stories embedded within.

This is a strange story. It didn't seem like an American novel at all, perhaps because the author, Richard Zimler, lives in Portugal immersed in a foreign culture which seeps into his American-set story. The prose is rich and inviting, the story complex and mysterious.

The setting is San Francisco in the 1980's. The main character Bill has recently separated from his wife. Haunted by this split, by his growing distance from his younger brother Jay, his estrangement from his mother, and memories of his cruel father, Bill feels lost and alone. He decides that he cannot face living in his house alone and decides to take in a tenant. The potential tenants who answer his ad are dreary, dull, not suitable at all. Bill almost changes his mind when suddenly a striking man appears at his doorstep: Peter. Peter is urbane, intelligent, mysterious, intriguing. Bill doesn't quite know why he finds Peter so attractive, but, even fearing he's making a mistake as he does it, he agrees to take Peter as a tenant.

Their friendship grows slowly. Peter introduces Bill to several characters as strange as he is: Mara the singer who had a childhood illness that destroyed the developmental hormones she needs for normal growth. She looks fifteen but is approaching fifty. Then there's Rain, the young prostitute, and William, an otherworldly, menacing older figure that seems to be a threat not only to Bill but to Peter himself. The gloominess of some of this is somehow still beautiful and inviting. As the novel progresses Bill begins to doubt everything, ultimately wondering if Peter is even really a human being, or some combination good/evil "angel of darkness."

Surprisingly, this dark novel has a happy ending. There seemed to me to be a few loose ends never explained. But then real life has its loose ends whose truths are never revealed to us, so I accepted these minor omissions in the novel.

Deftly told, richly described, this is a very unique novel. If you enjoy strange stories, this may just be the book for you.