Wages of Empire by Michael J. Cooper
Summer, 1914. The world teeters on the edge of war as an eclectic assortment of archaeologists, Arab freedom fighters, temple guardians, treasure seekers, Zionists, and one runaway teenage boy wanting to fight in the “Great War for Civilization” begin their disparate journeys all leading to Ottoman Palestine and Jerusalem — where a showdown is brewing over an ancient Biblical artifact in Michael J. Cooper’s thrilling novel Wages of Empire, now available on audiobook.
On sabbatical in Cedar City, Utah, Clive Robert Sinclair, Oxford professor of Near Eastern languages and archaeology, and his sixteen-year-old son, Evan, are still marooned on separate islands of grief two years after Janet Sinclair’s death in childbirth. Rumors of war in Europe ignite Evan’s adventurous spirit, and when England declares war on Germany, he heads to Europe to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), little realizing what he is signing up for. Clive will dust off his own Boer War military credentials and return to London to serve British military intelligence whilst searching for clues on Evan’s whereabouts, enlisting the help of his colleagues (and historical figures) T.E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell.
Diverse Characters Converge in Wartime Jerusalem
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, frustrated treasure seeker Montagu Walker accepts an offer to work for Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm I and keep the British and French from getting a toehold there. Indeed, the Kaiser Wilhelm storyline has Da Vinci Code vibes as Cooper plays up the German king’s “obsession” with Jerusalem and finding the Spear of Destiny (a legendary lance said to have pierced the side of the crucified Christ). Cooper’s version of Wilhelm, replete with spittle-flecked monologues and quack racial theories, reads proto-Hitler. But Walker also needs the Kaiser’s help to get around the mysterious Guardians of the Temple Mount who have so far stopped his every effort to excavate underneath the sacred ground.
Two of those Guardians — Gunter von Wertheimer and Rahman B’shara — are fellow archaeologists at the École Biblique in Jerusalem who are alerted to the presence of their old nemesis Walker. They must stay one step ahead of German conscription officers looking for Gunter and manage sickness, persecution, and homelessness as they seek safety in a world turned upside down. With Gunter, Rahman, and Jewish archaeologist David Nathanson, Cooper creates the perfect foil to Wilhelm’s unhinged racial and religious preconceptions: Christian, Jew, and Muslim work together and protect one another and their children as armies march and borders are erased.
A Tale of Adventure and Historical Intrigue
Cooper is not stingy with ideas or characters, as another subplot imagines the beginnings of the Arab Revolt with Faisal bin Hussein, son of the sharif and emir of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali Al-Hashimi. The Arabs want independence from Ottoman rule but wait for the Turks to join the war on Germany’s side before revolting. Seeking allies, Faisal plods through the Meccan desert via camelback to convince the Bedouin — clans and tribes like fingers on a hand — to join the fight and realize a new future through strength:
“… he knew that when the time was right, the separate fingers would draw into a fist, and together they would smite the Turks. Together they would gain their freedom.” The first book in a projected series, Wages of Empire brings together this wide cast of characters and skillfully manages multiple viewpoints and historical events — all while keeping a young man’s coming of age at its heart. Historical fiction fans with a taste for adventure and the esoteric will surely enjoy Wages of Empire and look for its planned sequel, Crossroads of Empire.
About Michael J. Cooper:
A native of Berkeley, California, Michael J. Cooper emigrated to Israel after finishing high school and lived in Jerusalem in 1966, the last year the city was divided between Israel and Jordan. Over the next decade, he travelled throughout the region, worked fitfully as an actor and musician on stage and Israel TV, studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and graduated from Tel Aviv University Medical School. After a forty-year career as a pediatric cardiologist in Northern California, he continues to return to Israel and the West Bank about twice a year to volunteer his services to Palestinian children who lack adequate access to care. When not traveling, he lives with his wife in the East Bay with a neurotic golden retriever and a spoiled rotten cat. Three adult children occasionally drop by.
In mid-life, Cooper turned from writing medical journal peer-review articles to historical fiction, (though some suggest that he always wrote fiction. But they would be wrong). His debut novel, Foxes in the Vineyard, set in 1948 Jerusalem, won the grand prize in the 2011 Indie Publishing Contest. His second novel, The Rabbi’s Knight, set in the Holy Land at the twilight of the Crusades in 1290, was finalist for the Chaucer Award for historical fiction. His just-completed third novel, Wages of Empire, is set in Europe and the Middle East during WWI and won the 2022 CIBA Rossetti Award for YA fiction along with first-place honors for the 2022 CIBA Hemingway award for wartime historical fiction. All three novels stand-alone, though they’re connected by the common threads of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the St. Clair/Sinclair bloodline and the subversive notions of coexistence and peace.
