Newton's Fire by Will Adams

 Will Adams has a well deserved reputation for fast paced, all action global conspiracy thrillers usualy combined with well researched links to historical events.   Newton's Fire is a fine example of this genre and kept this reader turning the pages and compensated for being trapped indoors with a terrible cold and even worse weather.
Luke Hayward is a Newton expert who is contracted to find some missing manuscripts.   Little does he know that he is on the fringes of a world wide conspiracy that includes big business, the Vice President of the United States and a group of extreme Zionists in Israel.   The idea is that the Zionists would destroy the mosque known as the Dome of the Rock and start an all out war with Israel's Arab neighbours.   The Vice President is a member of an extreme evangelical church who believe that such a conflict would presage the second coming of Christ and so she puts all the resources of the American secret service at the conspirators disposal.   Hayward and a handful of friends manage to frustrate this terrifying prospect and the best part is that the book is so good that by this time I has forgotten how prepostorous the whole thing was and happily rolled along to the death defying conclusion.
Just one more thing (as Columbo might say) chapter twelve contains one of the best descriptions of our so-called Special Relationship with the USA that I have ever read.   Worth the price of the book for this alone!