Twins Scar­lett and Sam are off on anoth­er adven­ture; this time, their des­ti­na­tion is King Solomon’s king­dom. They arrive to find the young king with no mon­ey and a dic­tum from God to build a tem­ple. Despite Solomon’s reput­ed wis­dom for solv­ing all prob­lems, build­ing the tem­ple seems impos­si­ble. It has to be built with­out iron, which is con­sid­ered a tool of war. With­out iron, who will be strong enough to cut the giant stones and install them in the nec­es­sary places?

Nathan, the prophet, appears on the scene ready to receive mes­sages from God that can help Solomon. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, his visions are murky and Scar­lett and Sam must use their inge­nu­ity to inter­pret them.

The twins, Solomon, and Nathan work as a team and dis­cov­er that find­ing the shamir, a one-of-a-kind insect that can cut stone, will solve their prob­lem. Nathan’s vision assures them that Ash­modai, king of the demons, has the shamir. The time-trav­el­ing twins’ courage, ini­tia­tive, and ded­i­ca­tion make them unique­ly suit­ed to help wrest the shamir from this unwill­ing demon.

Fol­low­ing the twists and turns of the plot is delight­ful, and humor­ous allu­sions from the present time are insert­ed with com­ic effect. The black and white draw­ings add to the story’s atmos­phere. With excel­lent mes­sages (evil doesn’t win; those who use care­ful obser­va­tion and intel­li­gence do) and lots of humor, this book is rec­om­mend­ed for read­ers ages 7 to 12.