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Throughout history, murder has been perpetrated in the name of religion. The Romans first put Christians to death in the arena and then, decided that Christianity should be the state religion, so they sent the pagans to the lions. The Crusaders killed Jew and Muslim alike. The Inquisition also killed Christians who didn't worship in the correct manner, but their strongest hatred was kept for Jews who refused to convert. The Tsars put the Jews into ghettos and limited their freedom, when they weren't being murdered With the tacit approval of most governments, Hitler killed 6 million Jews (and 6 million other innocents). THE LAND OF BURNING HEAT is the story of a family in New Mexico; a family who had lived in Bernalillo for 400 years, ever since the Spanish Inquisition came to the New World. One day, Isabel Santos brings Archivist Claire Reynier a hand written copy of a document she claims to have found under a brick in the floor of her family's adobe home. The document seems to be in Ladino, the language of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, and may have been written by a 16th century Jewish mystic who had been killed by the Inquisition in Mexico City. The next day, Isabel is found murdered in her home and the original document is gone. The hollowed out cross in which it was found is still in her purse, and further digging in the sand beneath the bricks, unearth a skeleton which turns out to be 400 years old. I wanted to like this book about the Conversos and Crypto-Jews (those who were forcibly converted by the Church) of the New World because I had heard many good things about the author and because I can never understand how the highly religious can ""Kill for Christ" or "Kill for Allah" or whatever, but this book smells of the lamp. I usually can't figure out the plot points, but I did in this book. It is very obvious what the history of the Santos family is, and there were too many irrelevant points brought in, such as the mention of Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, which is cited as an example of religious tolerance in the Northeast. The whole story is more sinister than given. And although Claire is grounded in the beauty and heat of New Mexico, its locale was more or less irrelevant in this book. It could have been anywhere in the Southwest, or even in Sicily or Spain or Portugal or anywhere the Inquisition operated. I came away with the feeling that the Inquisition is not completely dead. The fundamentalists of all religions, especially Christianity, want to convert or kill all who do not believe as they do. Even today the watchword of Christians and Muslims is "Convert of Die"
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, March 2003
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