By the Rivers of Babylon is a 1978 thriller novel by Nelson DeMille.
The plot focuses on two new Concorde jets that are flying to a U.N. meeting that will bring peace to the Middle East. However, en route to the meeting, the crews are advised by radio that bombs were hidden during the aircraft's manufacture, and they are forced on to an alternate route. One jet ignores warnings and is destroyed by remote control, and the other crash lands near the ruins of Babylon. Once crashed, the occupants of the jet must defend themselves against an army of Palestinian troops while the Israelis attempt to mount a rescue mission.
Famous quotes containing the words rivers and/or babylon:
“I remember once dreaming of pushing a canoe up the rivers of Maine, and that, when I had got so high that the channels were dry, I kept on through the ravines and gorges, nearly as well as before, by pushing a little harder, and now it seemed to me that my dream was partially realized.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The stars which shone over Babylon and the stable in Bethlehem still shine as brightly over the Empire State Building and your front yard today. They perform their cycles with the same mathematical precision, and they will continue to affect each thing on earth, including man, as long as the earth exists.”
—Linda Goodman (b. 1929)