Inside Saint Catherine Monastery, South Sinai, on one of the snowy nights of the winter, a mysterious death occurs for the monk in charge of the monastery library and its rare manuscripts. As the investigation begins, the quiet religious spot turns into a chase scene to reach the causes of the accident and learn the perpetrator and its goals.
And before engaging in an exciting adventure to uncover the scenes of the accident, the Egyptian author, poet and scriptwriter Haitham Dabour writes one sentence that is sufficient to ignite the reader's passion and sharpen his senses to focus on each upcoming line and learn the secret of the "Cross of Moses".
"The information on which the novel was built is correct ... names, characters, events and details are from the author's imagination, and any pure coincidence is a coincidence."
The events begin with the death of Monk Pavlos before the reader gradually explores the protagonists of the novel: Ahmed Bahi, Abu Imran, Akef Bey, Ruth, Salim. The reader learns through the novel's drama and its interesting rhythm on uninhibited spaces in the history of Egypt.
The story revolves after the popular uprising in 2011, when the country witnessed fundamental political and social changes and transformations. From the death of Pavlos, the adventure begins, as the investigative team summons photographer Ahmed Bahy, who previously visited the monastery and collected a friendship with the late monk to help reveal the details of the incident.
Bahey escapes from the grip of investigators, with the assistance of Ruth, a researcher at the Environmental Research Center of the University of the Suez Canal, and they follow together the details of the last days of the monk before they joined them, Abu Imran, the chief of the Jabalia tribe, who was entrusted with protecting and serving the monastery since ancient times.
Events follow and the adventure extends to the shrines of St. Catherine Monastery, where the skulls of the departing monks accumulate through the inflamed bush tree and reach the Al-Amiri Mosque and the orchards surrounding the monastery, so the reader finds himself on a journey of exploration of the landmarks and details of the place, and with incursion in every corner the hero raises philosophical questions about the truth of history and ways of codifying it And its transmission and the extent of the truth or falsity of his stories and stories.
In one passage, Bahi recalls what Pavelos once said to him, "Do not come closer to history, oh Bahi! Do not go deeper." He remembers his disapproval question about whether he believed that history was a vast sea that textbooks reduced to the borders of charming sandy beaches and that deepening it would open doors for him to swim in Those alluring waves.
"No, son, history is a quagmire and an ornament. Schoolbooks have chosen its sides, prevented you from diving into it and discover that everyone is human. They defended what they believed in their own way. And alliances, focus on them in the exam, but it blinds you from the means. "
From this entry, the author asks questions about the origin of the monastery’s designation, the truth of some of its archaeological holdings, the accuracy of the dates of some of its installations and the reasons for their establishment.
Parallel to the main line of the novel In Search of the Killer, the author lends more excitement to the work by planting marginal stories from different times going on in the orbit of St. Catherine with no direct link to the monk's accident, but with the development of events and the end of the adventure approaching, these stories converge to draw a clearer painting The history of the place and its surroundings.
The novel ends with the solution of the mystery, but it does not leave the reader's conscience without making him curious about the history of the monastery of St. Catherine and getting to know more about its residents or perhaps preparing for a close visit to it.
The name chosen by the author for his novel (the Cross of Moses) bears a religious and historical connotation, as it combined a symbol of Christian beliefs (the crucifixion) and a Prophet (Moses, peace be upon him) sent to the Jews on the land of Sinai with its special place in history and among the owners of the heavenly religions.
The novel, published by Dar Al-Shorouk in 344 pages, is the first for Dabur who graduated from the Faculty of Information and worked as a journalist before publishing a series of books that included poetry collections, stories, and long and short feature films, some of which sparked controversy such as "a bullet" that also takes place in the wake of the popular uprising of 2011.