Desperate to resurrect his career, after succumbing to the lure of Hollywood, Gideon Zadok travels to Israel, determined to find material for a new book. Once there, he finds Natasha Solomon, a survivor of the Holocaust, and her disturbed passion for him unleashes his own smouldering desires. Then, on the eve of the '56 Sinai War, he abandons her and joins the Israeli forces and is parachuted to the key junction of Mitla Pass, deep behind enemy lines. Amid the sounds of battle, Gideon wages a war no less violent within himself, as he strives to come to grips with the frightening power of love-hate. Breathtaking in scope and painfully human, "Mitla Pass" is the masterwork of a great novelist. The story of Gideon Zadok as he hunches down in the desert with the Israeli Army awaiting attack the book is mostly flashbacks through Gideon's life and his family's history. Utilizing a variety of narrative styles and a mix of narrators to give the reader a full perspective of events as they transpire, Uris also is able to flow from one time frame to the next with mastery and grace. For me, however, the true gem of this book is the character of Gideon Zadok himself; not the most likeable of people (cheats on his wife, is self-centered unabashedly) but for all of his very obvious faults you cannot help but sympathize and identify with him. I love stories where the main character is unlikable yet through the author the story is constructed in such a way that the reader is pulled into the characters world and forced to walk their path along with them, creating a perfect binary between protqagonist and reader.