For nearly three thousand years, Jezebel has been invoked as the ultimate femme fatale, the embodiment of wanton wickedness. But Lesley Hazleton's stunning retelling of her story creates a radically different portrait, one with startling contemporary resonance. The moment the Phoenician princess Jezebel arrives in Israel for her wedding to King Ahab, the alliance is denounced by the prophet Elijah. The new queen and the feared prophet go head to head in a dramatic and bloody conflict pitting polytheism against monotheism, tolerance against righteousness, pragmatism against ideology. In a nonfiction narrative as vivid and engrossing as Anita Diamant's bestselling novel The Red Tent, Hazleton reveals the real story of the downfall of a powerful woman, and how its consequences reverberate to the present day.