Land of Marvels

Barry Unsworth, a writer with an “almost magical capacity for literary time travel” ( New York Times Book Review ) has the extraordinary ability to re-create the past and make it relevant to contemporary readers. In Land of Marvels , a thriller set in 1914, he brings to life the schemes and double-dealings of Western nations grappling for a foothold in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. Somerville, a British archaeologist, is excavating a long-buried Assyrian palace.