The Human Scale

A political thriller that leads up to the devastating and cowardly Hamas attack on October 2023, The Human Scale provides an engaging encapsulation of history between Israel and Palestine but the very real tragedy of the deadly terminus downgrades the fictitious murder mystery from a clever whodunnit into a trite who-cares.

Title: The Human Scale (2025)
Author: Lawrence Wright
Publisher: Knopf

Book jacket: In this sweeping, timely thriller, a Palestinian American FBI agent teams up with a hardline Israeli cop to solve the murder of the Israeli police chief in Gaza.

Joe says: The Human Scale provides an engaging encapsulation of history between Israel and Palestine tempered with the security of genre fiction. But the very real tragedy of the deadly terminus downgrades the fictitious murder mystery into triviality.

Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, The Human Scale builds to the fateful Hamas attack by giving the ages-long conflict a fresh viewpoint through the eyes (or in this case, eye) of American FBI Agent Tony Malik. Wright has Malik on Israeli soil following the murder of a Gaza police chief. Malik represents the consummate stranger-in-a-strange-land scenario allowing Wright the ease to bounce through history starting with biblical times to lay the foundation for the hatred of two similar peoples, while showing the relevance to present day.

This historical tug-of-war becomes a deep and enlightening read. Yet, Malik’s investigation is nearly by-the-numbers and nearly becomes trivial as the other characters Wright creates – such as Yossi Ben-Gal, the police officer leading the investigation; his daughter, Sara; Dina, a Palestinian niece Tony recently met; and her fiancé, Jamal Khelil, an Arab freedom fighter seeking peace – all add to the stronger narrative of the tribal conflict.

Alongside the historical and fictional plot lines, Wright casts both sides as impartial as possible. However, as the countdown gets closer to that fatal October deadline, that impartiality tips. Wright expertly allows the reader to personalize the measure of weight in those scales. While Wright shows both the hurt and injustice, he also displays an all-encompassing irrationality of fear and hatred – for Jew and Arab alike.

The wrapping of a murder mystery around and within the Hamas attack serves as sugar on this spoonful of medicine. Whereas Wright has an obvious knack for the historical intrigue he pulls back and tempers the flood of dates and names with the security of genre fiction. And The Human Scale is a full, attractive read. Yet, and again, the historical intrigue is where Wright shows his strength. The late-great (can’t believe I have to write that out) Nelson DeMille achieved a similar path in Night Fall, his piece of historical fiction that ties together the TWA Flight 800 conspiracy with 9/11. However, Tony Malik is no John Corey. Right?

The Human Scale is a simple story dropped into a wasteland of confusion, human stubbornness, and epic suffering. Lawrence Wright provides a master class in Middle Eastern civics and like all good teachers, breaks it down into fun-sized bites. However, the overall mystery could have equally been a full-sized treat.