David Preston is the Dope Priest and he has a headache. If you've smuggled drugs out of war zones, you're not going to worry about a spot of illegal land trading between the Palestinians and Israelis. But David never planned on amorous nuns, kosher egg racketeers and the full might of the Israeli secret housing service. Even now, he feels he could cope. If only he could win the heart of the local drive-time DJ, or at least find something decent to smoke.
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Amazon Review
As an international dope smuggler, David Ramsbottom is used to an eventful existence. We join him on the day of his wedding to debutante Annabella Babbage--chain-smoking reefers in a bid to forget his two tons of hashish trapped in Beirut, and the police cars encircling the church.
Fifteen years later, broke, world-weary and irredeemably dependent on weed, David rejoins his old smuggling partner, Tony Khouri, in Israel, on the promise of easy cash to be made from an illegal land deal. But, as David should have learnt, nothing in his life comes easy. Shadowy Mossad agents, murderous Russians, fanatical nuns and egg smugglers are strewn across his path, while David yearns for just one smoke to make sense of it all. When that smoke comes, he is catapulted into an apocalyptic end-game, where his own survival hangs in the balance.
Set against the chaotic backdrop of the late 90s Holy Land, The Dope Priest is an uncanny mix of humour and tension. It combines the relentless pace of the best thrillers with the jaded eye of a pot-smoking William Boyd. It is possible to have reservations over such a cocktail: sometimes the political detail, though thoroughly researched, is a little heavy. And the love interest never quite produces the goods--because the plot allows little opportunity for its characters to grow on us. That said, Blincoe has tackled an unfamiliar subject with enviable ease, and produced a gripping tale. Reading while under the influence is not advised. --Matthew Baylis
Review
'Nicholas Blincoe is one of England's most gifted writers. His prose has clarity, range and restraint. He flips between entertaining and challenging his readers with an intelligence that is both embracing and unforced' (Alex Garland )
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Kurt
Format:Paperback
I loved it! Blincoe writes extremely well, making it all seem deceptively easy. Dialogue is rendered true to the idioms of the region and the characters are rendered vividly and efficiently. The episode with the nun on the Via Dolorosa still makes me laugh now - I have picked the book off the shelf a few times just to reread that passage. Great stuff.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I have been to Israel a few times and even trekked round the tourist spots of Bethlehem but this book took me deeper than I ever expected. It is set in 1997 so it is pretty peaceful - there are no riots on the streets, no soldiers shooting teenagers with rocks. Instead it looks at different problems, every day life in the occupied territories and the Israeli efforts to dominate Jerusalem by all means possible, whether that means violence, or just buying up all the available property. The hero is a likeable British stoner who never quite realises how serious the situation is. It is a funny book, but it is also the most serious-thinking book I have read in a long long while.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I read a great review of this book in the Guardian Weekly, but I will never trust them again. There are a few funny stories here, but stringing them together into a novel was a mistake. They are barely hooked together, hard to follow and generally silly, making all the characters seem stupid and laughable. Any attempts at sympathetic characters are two dimensional. Definitely not worth the price!
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I read one of the reviews on the book jacket that stated this is a very funny, very scary and a very dark story... Well it certainly wasn't scary even when dealing with ever-present violence that exists in the west bank the story failed to convey this. Funny? I didn't laugh once, there are some amusing moments when the totally unconvincing on-the-run dope smuggler gets mistaken for a priest but this is not a funny book even if it is trying hard to be! A dark story? is it trying to be a modern film-noir type crime novel? Again I didn't get this from it. In the end what you can say is that it does convey the geographical setting well but it does little more than this. Blincoe tries to make the main character David in to a loveable rogue but he comes across as a rather inneffectual dope-head with few worthwhile attributes. The story dealing with the property scam at first seems to have potential but it soon runs out of steam and flounders to a rather inconsequential ending. In the end you feel it was a bit of a waste of time.
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