The Fiction and Non-fiction of

B.S.Benjamin/B.B.Dandekar

Enjoy!

Fiction

Rampaging Lovers

by

B.B.Dandekar

An espionage thriller set in South Africa, England and France, against the backdrop of apartheid.

Joshua Samuelson, an Indian and eighteen years old, meets with Laura on a deserted beach twenty miles south of Durban. She will not marry him, but leaves him with a parting gift which is to haunt him forever………..

Now, fifteen years later, a lecherous bachelor and a doctor in Hampstead, Joshua is being tracked by Slagter, the South African hit man, for information he does not possess. Farnsworth, Head of the South African desk of MI-Six, assigns Julia, granddaughter of the eleventh Earl of Bromfield to protect Joshua—and find out why Saul, Laura’s husband, should have sent a RED ALERT to Pretoria before his body is found in an abandoned building in Clapham.

A novel with many finely-etched, memorable characters. Like………….

Jomo, Joshua’s good friend and Saul’s homosexual lover, who is the gentlest man Joshua has ever known.

Boko, Jomo’s brother, uncompromising member of the ANC, exiled to live in England—and prone to violence.

And Eva, their beautiful sister, more powerless than them all.

Clayborne, who shares his medical practice with Joshua—and his nights with Saul.

La Reine, the French stripper at the Coq D’Or, Saul’s first love, who has a simple goal that befits a simple woman.

Joe, Joshua’s brother, who, like Joshua, spends his evenings trying to pick up au pair girls at the Evening Star.

Lysa, the sensuous, Italian waitress who comes to the pub looking for Joshua—and finds Joe instead.

Shari, Saul’s Israeli assistant, who helps to run his novelty store in South Kensington—and a lot more.

Donaldson, Julia’s back-up, who loves to talk to her on the telephone—but will not meet her.

And the eleventh Earl of Bromfield……………

The novel, with nerve-tingling suspense, binds the characters in a plot replete with surprising twists. Yet is transcends the ordinary class of the genre. It towers above the work of Le Carre, Follett, Ludlum and Deighton, because it probes deep into the human heart. And then rips out what it finds there with an almost brutal candor. It is a literary novel that explores, with brilliance, the roots of racial tensions—not only in South Africa, but in England as well.

This is what professionals had to say about Rampaging Lovers……..

“…….you do write well………..”

Joan Kahn, St. Martin’s Press, N.Y.

“…….carefully plotted and well written…………”

Louis Strick, Taplinger Press, N.Y.

“…….the prose and vivid descriptiveness of it was admired……”

Seymour Lawrence, E.P.Dutton, N.Y.

A Nazi Among Jews

by

B. B. Dandekar

In 1941, in the village of Buchenwald, near Weimar in Nazi Germany, a Jewish family goes into hiding in a room beneath the ground. In the house of an old and trusted German friend. Forty-one years later, Jonathan Ellis, a mildly sophisticated Sephardic Jew, is waiting patiently, in an ill-lit parking lot in a small town in the Midwest, for Dalia, his Ashkenazi Jewish wife, to emerge from her mid-life ballet class. He sees, between the ballet school and the bank, an abandoned, closed-down darkened building. It seems just right for an office downtown. So he asks his friend Marty, a concrete contractor who dabbles in real estate, to make inquiries.........With chilling suspense, the novel explores the limits to which the human spirit can be stretched under fear of pain, suffering and death. What is the price that must be paid under such grotesque circumstances? Can honor, trust, and friendship be violated without loss of human dignity? And who was to blame? As one child, hiding in that room beneath the ground, put it forty-one years later: "To me, he was always the father who lived in the house above." The novel with searing honesty, and sometimes with considerable humor, looks at a "mixed" marriage and finds that the answers to some of those same questions can be no further away than home.

Dandekar has taken the mystery novel and raised it to literary heights, breaking new ground by crafting an intensely philosophical work, without taking away any of the suspense that keeps the reader turning the pages of the book.

Reviews in the Jewish-interest press for A Nazi Among Jews.........

".....Dandekar has mastered the technique of the thriller and has produced an unusual illustration of that specialized form of fiction."

Dr. Morton I. Teicher, Book Reviewer, MIAMI JEWISH TRIBUNE, Jan 3-9, 1992.

"..........The unfolding drama is spellbinding........It deserves wider visibility............"

Sol H. Marshall, Book Reviewer, B'NAI BRITH MESSENGER, Dec 4, 1992.

Bene Israel Tales

by

B.B.Dandekar

The Bene Israel have lived in India for over 2100 years—or so their legends say. In 175 BC, or thereabouts, in the reign of Antiochus IV, the Bene Israel fled Judea, sailing in ships down the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean, toward India. This was not unusual. Trade routes to India had been established since the days of King Solomon. (His Ophir, so some Bene Israel believe, was the now-silted-in port of Sopara near Surat on

the West coast of India).

The Bene Israel were blown off course and wrecked on the Konkan coast. Seven couples survived. They buried their dead in two mounds—and made India their home.

It was a hospitable land. The Bene Israel integrated well with the communities they lived. Sometimes too well. It was a happy union.

Israel, they are peopled by both Jews and non-Jews. All leading seemingly ordinary lives, woven into the richest tapestry in the world.

Unless that be the Jewish people.

Dandekar writes almost entirely about the sadness of the human condition. His characters, both Jews and non-Jews, seem constantly to seek a redemption that is, more often than not, unavailable to them. Sometimes the wall may be breached. As between a Maharani and her Jewish bodyguard, in the THE BODYGUARD. Sometimes it cannot, as in CRIPPLES, where he explores the complex relationship between two older Jewish men and a young, but crippled temple dancer.

These are literary gems. Stories that will endure because they show us for what we are. One need be neither Jewish nor Indian to appreciate the work of Dandekar.

A review in the Jewish-interest press for Bene Israel Tales………

“…….They are quite interesting, and yet, they have universal messages, similar to those of other Jewish communities…..”

Sol H. Marshall, Book Reviewer, B'NAI B'RITH MESSENGER, Feb. 19, 1993.

The Jewish Amendment

by

B.B.Dandekar

“Witholding the truth violates my code of journalistic ethics!” Anna said. “Makes a mockery of my work as a reporter! Can’t you see that?”

“That is a choice you may have to face,” he said. “You can either be a good journalist or a good Jew.” She bowed her head in despair…….

And when she is forced to confront the truth, what should Anna do? Take the Jewish Amendment? Even if it clashes with the public’s right to know, as embodied in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights?

These are the ethical questions facing Anna David, investigate reporter for the INDIA TIMES as she follows her assignment to uncover the identity of the Bada Saheb, whose megalomaniacal dream it is to destabilize India. But first she has to resolve other pressing doubts—and fears—about the people around her. Why was Frank Steinberg, Section Head of the CIA, at JFK observing her meeting with Behnaz Khodi? And why did Gavin Singleton, CIA Station Chief in Bombay, cable Frank to be there? And what of the Bada Saheb’s triumvirate? Behnaz was one of them; Anna knew that. Who were the other two?

Set in New York, Bombay and Ahmedabad, THE JEWISH AMENDMENT is a tightly-written thriller that easily transcends the novel as a major literary novel. It follows the tradition of Dandekar’s other literary works that are winning critical acclaim.

THE JEWISH AMENDMENT will be read—and taken—increasingly in the years to come; in his visionary writing Dandekar has few equals.

A review in the Jewish-interest press for The Jewish Amendment………

“…….In any event, this is a story that will hold the interest of readers…………”

Sol H. Marshall, B'NAI B'RITH MESSENGER, February 19, 1993.

David Rahabi

by

B.B.Dandekar

A historical novel about the discovery of Jews in India in the twelfth century by an Egyptian trader in precious stones

Of known facts in Jewish history, relevant to this novel, there are but three:

King Solomon had established trade routes to India in the tenth century BCE.

Moses Maimonides wrote to the Rabbis of Lunel (a city in southern France renowned as a seat of Jewish learning) at the end of the twelfth century: "But the Jews of India do not know the Written Law, except that they rest on Saturday and perform circumcision on the eighth day".

David of Rahab (Egypt), the brother of Moses Maimonides, was drowned in the Indian Ocean.

The rest is Bene Israel legend. And fiction...............

The history of life in medieval India of the twelfth century, relevant to this novel, has been meticulously researched. The narrative is as historically accurate as any work of fiction can possibly be.

This is what professionals had to say about David Rahabi...........

.......I find it fascinating reading and the stuff of which bestsellers are made...........

W. Van Riet, Senior Editor, GLC/Silver Burdett Co., May 10, 1982.

....................The prose is quite fluid and lyrical..............

Sims Wyeth, Editorial Staff, W. W. Norton & Co., Dec. 7, 1982.

Susan Altencroft

by

B.S.Benjamin

The story starts with a lonely English girl on a November evening and follows her movement in and out of the world of faerie. The tensions between her loneliness and the magic friendship of the elfin bron and the Fairy Queen create an interesting psychological dimension to the whole story. Her father expresses the inevitable skepticism of a parent whose child reports a conversation with the Fairy Queen, and her own experience of the faerie realm is often baffling. The fairies unexpectedly appear and disappear; a letter from Bron turns into leaves after Susan kisses it. The narrator avoids the mistake of denying Susan's experience of fairyland, but the story ends with the girl rushing downstairs to play with human friends, having left her world of fantasy.

Theme, plot, characterization and the evocation of magic in nature are all strengths of the story.......

From a review by Prof. Max Sutton, Department of English, University of Kansas

The adventure-fantasy with ecological overtones was beautifully handled. Good manners and morals were handled effectively.

......I could not put the book down!

From a review by Prof. Edwyna Gilbert, Department of English, University of Kansas

It is very imaginative, rich in color, and should be a real delight to just about any child.

From a review by Robert A. Johnston, English Teacher, Queen Elizabeth High School, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

And this is what one child had to say about Susan Altencroft:

I REALLY ENJOYED YOUR BOOK THAT YOU WROTE. I'M SORRY THAT I DIDN'T READ IT SOONER. MY FAVORITE PARTS OF THE BOOK IS WHEN SUSAN WENT TO THE FAIR AND WHEN SHE MET BRON AND THE QUEEN. I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING TO SAY. I REALLY REALLY ENJOYED THE BOOK. IF SOME OTHER KIDS READ THIS BOOK I WOULD THINK THEY WOULD ENJOY IT.

LOVE JOAN WARKOCZEWSKI

Non-Fiction

STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION: An Illustrated History

by

B. S. Benjamin

Structure is the strength of everything. It is the reason things stand up; why they don’t fall down. It is the one, single, unifying thread through all of our existence—predated only by matter itself. Even life cannot equal structure in that regard.

That is what this book is all about—an exciting scientific and philosophical journey tracing the evolution of structure. From geological structure through biological structure (botanical, endoskeleton and exoskeleton) to insect architecture and anthropological structure, it identifies the causes that motivated structural evolution. It then examines the growth of structure through all the periods of human history—ancient, medieval, pre-modern and modern—with some predictions on the structures of the future.

Written without technical jargon, with clarity, and superbly illustrated, this book will cause every thinking person, in the light of the evidence, to reevaluate our relationship to the world around us.

Dr. B. S. Benjamin is Professor of Architecture at the University of Kansas. A structural engineer with graduate degrees from the University of London, he is the author of several other technical books such as ANALYSIS OF BRACED DOMES published by Asia Publishing House, Bombay, India, and STRUCTURES FOR ARCHITECTS and STRUCTURAL DESIGN WITH PLASTICS, both published by Van Nostrand Reinhold Publishing Co., New York. He was a member of the Foam Plastics Committee of the Advisory board for the Built Environment (ABBE) of the National Academy of Sciences. He has taught in England, where he was Principal Lecturer at the Hatfield Polytechnic (now the University of Hertfordshire), and in Israel, where he was Fulbright Scholar at the Technion, in Haifa, for the 1987-88 academic year.

Unpublished Fiction and Non-fiction

The Nature of God: A simple explanation for everyone

This book-length manuscript examines the evidence in various fields of human endeavor—physics, astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, biology, psychology, medicine and theology (Judaic)--on the nature of God. And reaches such startling conclusions that the author, quite simply, will neither publish it nor consider its publication. Yet, as Sherlock Holmes once said (and I paraphrase): If you eliminate the impossible, then what remains, however improbable, has to be the truth! Maybe one day…………..

The Thar Articles

This espionage novel is a sequel to B.B.Dandeker’s first novel, Rampaging Lovers. Set in Washington DC, London, Bombay, Karachi, and the remote Thar Desert, that marks the arid border between India and Pakistan, this thriller has Joshua and Julia as two pawns in the murderous intrigue between Indian Military Intelligence and the Pakistan Intelligence Agency. Until the two pawns decide that they have a different role to play than was designed for them! And, as always, Dandekar probes the thoughts, emotions and actions of his characters—and Indian man and an Englishwoman—with such sensitivity that this work could almost be—dare I say it!—a literary novel.

The Albedo Effect

And what are the effects on the human psyche when an intelligence agent is forced to work for two masters? How does one preserve one’s sanity in such a nightmarish scenario? That is what an Indian professor of meteorology, David, and his American graduate student, Pamela, have to face while researching the albedo effect, that seems to be affecting selected areas of the world. With devastating brilliance, Dandekar has created, in this novel, perhaps, the most tragic of his characters, a Hamlet-like creature that performs at a robotic level on the merciless demands made by both sides.

For further information on any of these books e-mail the author at: sben@ku.edu

or write to him at

A.B.Literary House, P.O.Box 528, Lawrence, Kansas 66044, USA