Dar­ing explor­ers, dash­ing courtiers, threat­ened Jews, swash­buck­ling pirates, damsels in dis­tress and deter­mined entrepre­neurs mix in this excit­ing tale of rival­ry and dis­cov­ery in lat­er fif­teenth cen­tu­ry Europe. Bona fide his­tor­i­cal fig­ures mix with fic­tion­al ones to allow dia­log and motives as Por­tu­gal fights a jeal­ous West and a hos­tile East. The goal is an all-water route to India, cre­at­ing eas­i­ly avail­able, cheap­er spices. This new route would threat­en the suprema­cy of Venice, con­trol­ling the sea/​land route of the Mediter­ranean and Mid­dle East. Vene­tians sus­pect Por­tuguese; they com­pete and spy. Arabs resort to mur­der to pro­tect their high­ly prof­itable trade monop­oly in Asia. We think today’s inter­na­tion­al econ­o­my and mul­tira­cial soci­ety is new; it pales in com­par­i­son to the adven­tur­ous rev­o­lu­tion­ary ideas in the Age of Explo­ration. Their Devil’s Cave is our Cape of Good Hope. 

Help­ing famous heroes sail around the south­ern tip of Africa were the nav­i­ga­tion­al instru­ments per­fect­ed by Jews. These Jews, recent­ly expelled by Spain, know what is about to hap­pen in Por­tu­gal. To achieve cred­i­ble inter­ac­tion with leg­ends Fer­di­nand Magel­lan, Vas­co de Gama, and Bartholomew Diaz, the author gives his­tor­i­cal Jew­ish inven­tor Abra­ham Zacu­to a broth­er, Abel, a Lis­bon banker who spends his time per­fect­ing Arab ship tools unknown in West­ern Europe. Abel and the explor­ers work fever­ish­ly, buck­ing roy­al pro­cras­ti­na­tion. Abel’s maps, charts, instru­ments, and ideas help place Por­tu­gal in the fore­front of the race to redraw the globe; the book fol­lows the breath­tak­ing action. A chaste love sto­ry and mar­itime suc­cess bal­ance vio­lent may­hem. Each chap­ter starts with a dark, threat­en­ing wood­cut which under­lines that explor­ing was not for sissies. Well writ­ten with dia­log bal­anc­ing detailed descrip­tions, this engross­ing read is a reprint of the 1931 New­bery Hon­or Book; it hon­ors Jew­ish con­tri­bu­tion to explo­ration in edge-of-the-seat his­tor­i­cal fic­tion. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed for ages 12 – 18.