Edward Whittemore

Edward Whittemore (26 May 1933 – 3 August 1995) was an American novelist (1974 – 1987) and Central Intelligence Agency case officer, Directorate of Operations (Asia, Middle East, Europe, 1958 – 1967)

Why is it the Mongols of this world always tell us they're defending us against the Mongols?

Quotes

Quin's Shanghai Circus (1974)

Christian Quarter, 1912.

Sinai Tapestry (1977)

• But to Stern at that moment it wasn't a hand grenade at all but a no longer distant cloud high above the Temple of the Moon, a driftin memory in the desert of dim pillars and fountains and waterways, mysterious places where myrrh grew, the ruins of his youth.
  Blinding light then in the mirror behind the bar, sudden death merging the stars and windstorms of his life with darkness in the failure of his seeking, bright blinding light in the night sky at last and Stern's once vast vision of a homeland for all the peoples of his heritage gone as if he had never lived, shattered as if he had never suffered, his futile devotion ended on a clear Cairo night during the uncertain campaigns of 1942 when the eternal disguise he wore to his last clandestine meeting, his face, was ripped way and thrown against a mirror in the half-light of an Arab bar, there to stare at a now immobile landscape fixed to witness his death forever.

Muslim Quarter, 1950

Jerusalem Poker (1978)

Part One

• The Great Jerusalem Poker Game for secret control of the city, the ruin of so many adventurers in the period between the two world wars, continued for twelve years before it finally spent itself. During that time thousands of gamblers from around the world lost fortunes trying to win the Holy City, but in the end there were only three men at the table, the same three who had been there in the beginning.
  • Chapter 1, "Jerusalem 1933," opening paragraph of novel.

Jewish Quarter, 1930

• "Now I think you'll both agree that through my various illicit enterprises," Cairo Martyr said, "I control the Moslem Quarter in this city."
  "The mummy dust king is about to strike," muttered O'Sullivan Beare. But at the same time he knew the claim was true, just as was his own secret control over the Christian Quarter and Munk Szondi's over the Jewish Quarter, religious symbols and trading in futures being just as essential to Jerusalem as mummy dust.
  "Now then, that's my bet. Control of the Moslem Quarter. I'm putting the Moslem Quarter on the table. If either of you wins, which you won't, it belongs to you. But first you have to match my bet. No openers. The real thing."
  • Chapter 1, "Jerusalem 1933"

Nile Shadows (1983)

• Why is it the Mongols of this world always tell us they're defending us against the Mongols?
  • NS is the third book in the "Jerusalem Quartet"

External links

• Jerusalem Dreaming, a tribute site to Edward Whittemore