SOURCE: Hulse, Michael. “All Fortune Cookies to Him.” Spectator 281, no. 8882 (31 October 1998): 50.

In the following review, Hulse criticizes Damascus Gate, claiming that Stone fails to “come to terms” with his religious subject matter in the novel and that the narrative is unconvincing.

This new novel by the author of Dog Soldiers is so unsatisfying that the enthusiasm with which it has been received in the United States appears truly bewildering. A novel set in Jerusalem enjoys the kudos, no doubt, of having broached avowedly difficult material. And Stone has a reputation. But his inability in Damascus Gate to convert research into felt narrative, to allow any of his manifest intelligence to stray from the authorial voice into the world of his characters, or to come seriously to terms with the religious complexities that are ostensibly a main subject, is disturbing.

Christopher Lucas, a journalist in search of a topic...