<p>Harry Hanan, self-assured CIA Chief of Station, Ankara, is dying from terminal cancer. But Harry will not be allowed to die in peace.</p><p>The Thirteen Men have been marked for death by a self-appointed goel hadam, the Biblical "avenger of the Blood" authorized by ancient law to kill for private revenge. And Harry Hanan is to be the thirteenth victim. </p><p>In this quest for his own murderer, Hanan joins a clandestine international quartet on the trail of a goel hadam: Sam Urdell, the feisty old-timer who came out of retirement to search for the avenger; Peter Vogelsang, the rich as man whose modern research techniques proved useless in the hunt; Elly Bircha, the beautiful Swiss translator whose cloudy past did not stop each man from seeing her in his future and Schorsh, the theology professor who guided them through arcane Biblical and Talmudic scholarship.</p>