Really good book telling two entertaining and lightly entwined stories set 26 centuries apart.
The writing is good, the characters interesting and the narrative really picks up from a slow start.
Yet the real strength is the historical context of both stories, the tail end of the Assyrian empire and the much shorter lived ISIS 'Caliphate'.
I feel the author could have went even further in this aspect, I found him from his outstanding podcast "The fall of civilisations" he has a huge and detailed knowledge of the time period and a keen human interest. It may be that I just prefer the podcast form! A strong recommendation for both either way!