Captured by an Arab and an Italian and tied to a chair in a Brooklyn basement, Shaltiel Feigenberg has been chosen to be exchanged for three Palestinian prisoners. To keep down his terror, he tells stories to himself and his jailers, recalling a childhood spent hiding from the Nazis (it's now 1975), liberation by the Soviets, Sixties unrest, and more. Nobel Peace Prize winner and novelist Wiesel continues exploring the Holocaust's continuing ramifications.

A Jewish storyteller and writer, Shaltiel Feigenberg, is abducted and held hostage by terrorists to bargain for the release of Palestinian prisoners in 1975. During his captivity and torture, Shaltiel tells stories from his past, intermixing scenes from German-occupied Europe with the horror of the narrator's current situation. The strength of Wiesel's most recent novel is his exploration of the psychology of being a hostage, as well as the complex nature of memory and its role in our lives. Perhaps his own near-abduction in 2007 was the seed of inspiration for this work. Regrettably, characters in the frame narrative are somewhat flat and one-dimensional, while Shaltiel's stories about his past are more nuanced. Wiesel is the author of more than 50 books, including the acclaimed Night, and he is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, among other honors. VERDICT Readers expecting a literary thriller may be disappointed, but fans of Wiesel's strong prose who are looking forward to a return to familiar themes will be gratified by this work. [See Prepub Alert, 1/30/12.]—Gwen Vredevoogd, Marymount Univ., Arlington, VA

A provocative "what-if" premise propels Nobel laureate Wiesel's (Night) latest novel. In 1975, an Orthodox Jewish man, Shaltiel Feigenberg, is kidnapped from a Brooklyn street and held hostage by two terrorists, an Arab and an Italian, who demand the release of Palestinians and threaten death if their demands aren't met. Shaltiel, a kindly storyteller, ruminates on the blessings of Judaism and recalls the words of Jewish prophets, philosophers, and mystics with nostalgia. He also remembers the moral ambiguity of being hidden in his native Galicia by a Nazi officer while his family labored in Auschwitz. Wiesel deplores ideologies that mislead and betray, including the communism that lured Shaltiel's brother in the 1930s. As Shaltiel's Arab captor spews hatred and his Italian captor speaks for international terrorism, Shaltiel claims that the excesses of Israel's treatment of Palestinians are unavoidable safety measures. While the clock ticks closer to the deadline, Wiesel's narrative skills fail to create tension, and Shaltiel's rescue is perfunctory. Instead of a literary thriller, we get a didactic defense of the Jewish state and its timeless vulnerability. Agent: Georges Borchardt. (Aug. 24)