Delta Fourth and Marwan Muasher on democracy and gangsters in the Arab world

Marwan Muasher's The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism has much to say about the necessity of expanding the breadth and inclusiveness of politics in the Middle East.  The Murder of Yasser Arafat, by "Delta Fourth" (Matthew Kalman and Matt Rees) suggests what can happen when the possibility of dissent is squelched.

Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Jordanian diplomat and government minister, offers a number of bracing assertions and recommendations.

One is that revolution, reform, and rebuilding take time. Observers should not be too quick to write off the so-called Arab Spring. Opening Arab politics will take decades, Muasher says. Another is that uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere since 2011 have already shattered several myths, among them "that food must be put on the table before political reform can move forward." Muasher's target is economic liberalization unaccompanied by democratization in the Arab world, but I can't help recalling voices here in the United States that used to blandly insist that political reform would inevitably follow loosening of economic strictures. Such a stance is no doubt good for corporate profits, but somehow one does not hear those voices much anymore, and if China has become democratic, I missed it.

The Murder of Yasser Arafat suggests what can happen when gangsters run a government, or an organization that ostensibly aspires to government. Palestinians, especially capable members of the PLO leadership kept from the highest-level jobs by Arafat's jealousy, knew the Old Man salted away millions and was an obstacle to their personal and professional aspirations. The result is apparent in the book's title. And who is the real villain? A hint: It's not Israel.

Rees and Kalman have made their short book into a mix of inquiry and hard-boiled crime. But at least one bit sounds as if it could have come from Marwan Muasher's pen::

"When the gunmen killed someone like Adnan Shahine, it looked as though they were upholding the morals of the struggle against Israel. But there was something stronger at work: the lack of democracy and due process that eventually turned everyone against the Authority, including Arafat’s own ministers."

***

Rees is also a novelist whose work includes the Omar Yussef novels, set in the Palestinian world. He says he and Kalman wrote The Murder of Yasser Arafat as hard-boiled crime. Here is my favorite such example, a nice evocation of the book's morally shadowy world:

"Muhammad Dahlan ... is officially a man without a job or any visible means of support. But he glides through the West Bank in a bulletproof black Chevrolet Suburban supplied by his friends at the CIA bearing the official red and white license plates of the Palestinian Authority. Everywhere he goes, a phalanx of armed bodyguards surrounds him, sealing off the floor of his Ramallah Hotel and waiting on him with food and drink. The source of their salaries is unclear. Their loyalty is unquestioned.

"Dahlan is on a break from an extended visit to Cambridge, where he is perfecting his English, courtesy of the British taxpayer."

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

A Hitch in crime (or why you should read crime fiction and not the news)

I inadvertently left at home the crime novel I'd intended to read on my dinner break yesterday, but the substitute was more than acceptable, and it dovetailed neatly with some recent Detectives Beyond Borders posts.

The author is Christopher Hitchens, the book is his essay collection Arguably, and the passage I have in mind is from the book's introduction, in which Hitchens recounts his support and admiration for real revolutionaries in the Middle East and contrasts these with, among others, "the baroque corruption of the `Palestinian Authority.'”

 "It was clear," Hitchens writes, "that a good number of the audience (including, I regret to say, most of the Americans) regarded me as some kind of stooge. For them, revolutionary authenticity belonged to groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, resolute opponents of the global colossus and tireless fighters against Zionism."

Last week I wrote about my eye-opening chat in Tel Aviv about crime fiction in Israel. My informant was decidedly a man of the left, forthright and rueful about, among other things, the Israeli army's bulldozing of houses in Hebron. Yet he was equally forthright about calling Hamas terrorists. And he recounted a naval patrol from his own military service, when he marveled at the white sand beaches of Gaza and at the equally white luxury villas belonging to the Palestinian Authority elite that loomed above, built, presumably, with PA money that did not find its way into Swiss bank accounts.

Like the Israeli Arab driver who shuttled me to Hebron and Bethlehem on the same trip, that informant offered a more nuanced view of Israeli and Palestinian affairs than one is likely to get in America, where Palestinians are good and Israelis bad, or vice versa. And this, in turn, reminded me of Matt Rees' decision to turn to crime writing when he found a story "too good for Time magazine," and of the corruption of Palestinian officialdom that forms an important subtext in his novels but not of media and popular discussion of the Middle East, at least not in the United States.

And what about the Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra, who once told an interviewer

"Algerian readers like me a lot. They read me in French because I am not translated into Arabic. I am translated into Indonesian, Japanese, Malayalam, in the majority of the languages, except in Arabic. But that has nothing to do with the Arab peoples. It is the leaders who seek, as always, to dissociate the people from the elites so they can continue to reign and cultivate clanism and mediocrity."

There's another sentiment you'll likely not read in the American media, unless the reporters make themselves hip by affixing to it a fatuous social-media-related tag.

And now, readers, a question: "Crime stories reflect reality better than do the media." Do you agree? Disagree? Discuss.

 © Peter Rozovsky 2012

He walked, I rode

(Confused ass on the road to Jerusalem)

Rented a bicycle, rode along the Sea of Galilee in Tiberias, and fell off just once, in the mud at a Roman archaeological site that will be something to see if Israel ever makes it accessible.

And, in another experience that reminded me of Matt Rees' crime novels,  my driver to Hebron and Bethlehem, asked why rich Arab governments don't pour money into the Palestinian territories the way Jewish benefactors do into Israel, said: "They did. It all wound up in Swiss (bank accounts)."

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Territorial imperatives

(Mosaic floor, Church of the
Nativity, Bethlehem)

Hebron is an occasional flash point of tension between Palestinians and Jewish settlers, and the city's streets are rubble-strewn relics of strife and of shops closed by a straitened economy. Parts of Hebron are probably frightening places to be caught at night.

My driver for the day, an Israeli Arab, said he can't leave his car alone in Hebron for fear that it will be stoned. Yet the only fear I felt all day came when we pulled into a gas station outside Bethlehem, to find the attendant lounging against the pumps smoking a cigarette.  I nervously asked the driver if we ought to pray for the Creator of us all to get us out of there alive.

So, why Hebron? Because it is arguably the world's most important historical site. The Book of Genesis says Abraham bought land here as a burial place for his wife, Sarah, and was later himself buried there, in the Cave of the Patriarchs, to be joined by Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah. This was by tradition the first acquisition of land by Jews in Israel and is thus the seminal site for the entire Judeo-Christian tradition.

Herod put up a fine building over the tombs, to which Salah ad-din (Saladin) added minarets in the twelfth century. The biblical patriarchs and matriarchs are buried in the caves, memorialized in cenotaphs in the building above, where worshipers pray to Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, and Leah in the building's Jewish section and to Isaac and Rebecca in the Muslim section. (Like much else here, the building is divided.)

A bunch of men prayed before Sarah's tomb, one young man pulling at his payot (forelocks) in religious ecstasy. A woman chanted alone before Leah's memorial, bowing and swaying, showing no sign she was distracted by the conversation and occasional clatter of metal from workers maintaining the adjacent synagogue. (Here's a bit about the physical vocabulary of Jewish prayer; read it as a counterpart to the Arabic gestures from Tuesday's post.)

So, what did the day have to do with crime fiction? I'll tell you tomorrow. Blessed be God, who created long lines, Bethlehem drivers, and cliffhangers to teach us patience!

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Bless your hands!

(Magnificent, Solly)

Matt Rees, who has written four crime novels featuring a Palestinian teacher named Omar Yussef, once explained why he translated certain  greetings rather than giving transliterated versions of the original Arabic:

"I translated them, rather than just putting the original Arabic phrase in italics, because I wanted readers to get the poetry of everyday speech. ... When someone gives them a cup of coffee, they tell them `May Allah bless your hands.' Isn't that beautiful?"

Struck by that everyday poetry, I decided to try it myself this morning, and I wished the waiter who served me breakfast يسلم يدك ("Yislamu eedayk."). From the smile and the profusion of words that followed, I suspected I had said the right thing, but who knows? The man could have had a sense of humor and been calling me a dog and the son of unworthy parents.

But he also placed his right palm on his chest, which was the clincher, because

"Placing the palm of the right hand on the chest immediately after shaking hands with another man shows respect or thanks. A very slight bow of the head may also be added."

and

"Placing the palm of the right hand on the chest, bowing the head a little and closing one’s eyes connotes `Thank You' (in the name of Allah)."

This was the greatest and most gratifying effusion of good feeling I had received since I wished the locals "Eid Mubarak" in Tunisia.  So who says crime fiction can't be educational? Thanks, Matt.

(Learn about Arabic gestures including the ones described here at a Web site that bears the evocative name www.bellydanceuk.co.uk.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

When does the Arabic crime-fiction boom start?

(Blogger's paragraph formatting is malfunctioning yet again. I hope what follows is readable.)

Matt Rees, who sets his crime novels amid the corruption and violence of the Palestinian world, suggests that the current unrest throughout the Arab world will give rise to crime fiction, if not now, then later. "One of the offshoots of the downfall of Arab dictators," he writes, "is sure to be an explosion of thrillers and mysteries." Why?

"I believe Arabs have eschewed crime writing because it’s a democratic genre. One man wants to find out something that a big organization – the CIA, the mafia, the government – wants to keep secret. ... For people who live in democracies, it’s easy to find fiction credible that suggests a man can investigate – and once he fingers the bad guy, the bad guy will be punished."

I wonder when such an explosion of thrillers and mysteries will begin (if it has not done so already) and how we will know about it in today's atomized publishing world.

Much short crime fiction in English is published on the Internet these days, particularly on the darker, more violent end of the spectrum. I suspect that little of this work is translated into other languages. Will such be the case with any future boom in Arabic crime fiction? Will the boom happen on the Web, in Arabic, untranslated and under the noses of the outside crime fiction world? Has it started already? Is someone sitting in Tahrir Square or Benghazi at this moment typing and circulating dark tales of crime, justice and corruption?

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

A new blog about international crime fiction from folks who write the stuff

It's International Crime Authors Reality Check, a cooperative effort from Christopher G. Moore, Colin Cotterill, Matt Beynon Reese and Barbara Nadel, each of whom plans one post a week.

The opening lineup includes How the Devil Lost its Vagina from Cotterill, Quick, woman, go and get the Koran! from Rees, The Elements of Crime Fiction in Foreign Settings from Moore, and a modest greeting from Nadel.

The site also includes short biographies, information about the authors' books, and news links. I've written about three of the authors here on Detectives Beyond Borders, most recently about Cotterill's Curse of the Pogo Stick last week, and I'll look forward to adding Nadel to the list.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

4x4: The meme

My fellow award-winning blogger J. Kingston Pierce has tagged me with a meme tailor-made for Detectives Beyond Borders. The meme is built around questions involving the number four, and I especially liked the ones that involved travel and places where one has lived.

Since Jeff expanded the list of questions from eight to ten, I don't feel too badly about making my own adjustments. And you can do the same.


Four places I'd like to go or things I'd like to do:

1) Visit the Angkor temple complex in Cambodia

2) Visit the Ajanta caves in India

3) Hike the length of Hadrian's Wall

4) Complete a short walk I began a few years ago, along the West Kennet Avenue from Avebury to the Sanctuary


Four places I've lived:

1) Montreal

2) Rome

3) Philadelphia

4) The Boston area, which leads to my own category of ...


Four places I've lived in the Boston area:

1) Waltham

2) Brookline, whose no-overnight-parking regulations seemed intended to keep out the folks from ...

3) Brighton

4) Somerville


Four places I've been on vacation:

1) Split, Croatia. By the shimmering blue Adriatic Sea, in a hotel within the precincts of Diocletian's Palace. One of the places that has inspired me with a desire to live there.

2) 桂林 (Guilin, China.) Sweaty, hot, amid spotty air-conditioning and other trappings of a section of China making the uncertain transition to Western-style consumer capitalism. Also home of the near-hallucinogenic beauty of the sandstone natural spires, and the only place I have seen anyone playing a guitar while passenger on a bicycle.

3) Israel/Palestinian territories. Alas, it's not as easy as it once was to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs to see blind old Muslim sage-like men praying at a site so fundamental to our sense of our own culture.

4) Istanbul, in particular Hagia Sophia, quite possibly the most influential building in the history of the world, and certainly one of the most beautiful. One can see the gallery mosaics up close, and there is something special about seeing and touching the rough, unfinished stone that lines the spiral stairways to the upper levels.


Four foods or drinks I have liked:

1) A nice, medium-rare steak

2) A good Brunello da Montalcino

3) Fresh raspberries

4) Deviled eggs


Four (with ties) books or movies I could read or watch again:

1) Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility

2) Roughing It

3) Any of books 7 through 16 of Bill James' Harpur and Iles novels

4) Seven Samurai, Stray Dog and, appropriately for repeated viewing, Rashomon


Four works of art before which I have stood (or sat) either in deep relaxation, as close as I get to a meditative state, or with a profound sense of receptiveness:

1) Piero della Francesca's Resurrection and Montefeltro Altarpiece (Scan by Mark Harden)

2) Velázquez's Las Meninas

3) Rembrandt's Bathsheba at Her Bath

4) Trajan's Column


Four literary, scientific, artistic or political figures from the past whom I'd like to watch at work or meet for dinner and drinks:

1) Giotto

2) Jane Austen

3) Mark Twain

3a) Charles Darwin

4) Jawaharlal Nehru. Anyone who can write a book of world history from memory and addressed as a series of letters to his daughter is a man to be reckoned with. Anyone who can write a book about his own country and call it The Discovery of India has a passionate intellect that's worth anyone's interest. And the man had a few practical accomplishments as well, I think.


Answers have begun to arrive from four people I think might take it upon themselves to answer these questions:

1) Sucharita Sarkar (yet another evocative post from one of my favorite writers in blogland.)

2) Seana Graham (good reading!)

3) Adrian McKinty (good reading about bridges and food!)

4) Maxine Clarke

and

5) Kerrie, who stepped in graciously for Maxine and talks about her journey from Paradise to Hell and back. Thanks!

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Fiction and real life

Matt Rees links to "The Fiction Writer's Gaza," an article he wrote about the differences between the journalists' Gaza and the one he portrays in his novel A Grave in Gaza (The Saladin Murders in the U.K.). "A Grave in Gaza," Rees writes, "traces many of the same troubles that we're witnessing today in the Gaza Strip — except that I hope it's more entertaining."

Rees discusses his third Omar Yussef novel, The Samaritan's Secret, in a video interview here. He talks about the difficulties of his previous career as a journalist in the Middle East, moving back and forth between two societies: "Each of them, when you're among them, is very convincing. ... As a journalist, I feel like you visit, but as a novelist you have to live with someone. Your novel has to take people inside the society."

Click here for Rees' promotional video, which gives enough history of the Samaritans to make the book a compelling prospect. Read my 2008 interview with Rees here.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Matt Rees reads on the radio

Matt Rees is the guest and subject on an installment of National Public Radio's Crime in the City series. Host Eric Westervelt walks with Rees through Nablus, site of Rees' upcoming third Omar Yussef mystery, The Samaritan's Secret. The segment suffers that annoying trait of so many radio features — excessive talk from a host who thinks he's painting vivid word pictures — and Westervelt misuses the word ply.

But Rees is a compelling guide, and he has an apparent love for his setting. Click here to listen to the segment and to read a transcript. You'll also find links to Rees reading from The Samaritan's Secret and to an excerpt from Rees' first novel, The Collaborator of Bethlehem (called The Bethlehem Murders in the U.K.).

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Matt Rees and reality

Matt Rees, author of The Collaborator of Bethlehem (Bethlehem Murders in the U.K.) and A Grave in Gaza (The Saladin Murders) and subject of a Detectives Beyond Borders interview, has some interesting things to say in a new review/interview about the latter book in the Jerusalem Post. So does his reviewer/interviewer.

The novel's General Moussa Husseini, reviewer Avi Hoffmann writes, appears to be based on Yasser Arafat's cousin, the security chief Moussa Arafat, who met an end in 2005 like the one Husseini meets in A Grave in Gaza's most chilling and violent scene.

Back in the fictional word, Hoffmann cites a blurb that invoked Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse and Ian Rankin's Rebus alongside Rees' protagonist, Omar Yussef. Hoffmann says he finds the comparison strained, and he offers interesting reasons for doing so. He nominates his own candidate for a closer Yussef parallel, a choice I agree with: Yasmina Khadra's Brahim Llob.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Love, war, crime fiction, and a question for readers

I posted more than a year ago about the chilling opening chapter of Yasmina Khadra's Morituri, in which the ravages of fighting in Algeria have sapped the protagonist even of the consolation of sexual desire:

"Today my wife, my poor beast of burden, has regressed – she holds no more attraction than a trailer lying across the road, but at least she's there when I am afraid of the dark."

The next day, I found a discussion of Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida that said: "Chaucer was creating a work that could help bring a declining society back to a state of health. The whole perpetual love theme in Chaucer relates to this, because love is one of the first relations to go awry in an unhealthy society."

In A Grave in Gaza, Matt Rees' protagonist is haunted by deaths he has witnessed:

"Omar Yussef dreamed of death ... Death wasn't following him anymore. It was sharing his bed, not like a wife, but like an illicit lover, jealous and angry, giving him no sleep."

Once again, war is a destroyer of love (though only in his dreams for the eminently well-adjusted, decidely non-screwed-up, warped, embittered, cowed or otherwise damaged Omar Yussef). What other modern crime stories use this ancient theme?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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An interview with Matt Rees

Matt Rees spent a decade as a reporter in the Palestinian territories and wrote a nonfiction book, Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East, before deciding he needed another, richer way to tell the stories he found there. His two crime novels, The Collaborator of Bethlehem (The Bethlehem Murders in the U.K.) and A Grave in Gaza (a.k.a. The Saladin Murders) portray a harsh world, populated by villains as callous, venal and brutal as any in crime fiction. But Rees finds beauty in that world, too. He wrote last year in Mystery Readers Journal that:

"By learning [Arabic], I was able to give my characters some of the formalized greetings and blessings that are an important part of Palestinian speech. I translated them, rather than just putting the original Arabic phrase in italics, because I wanted readers to get the poetry of everyday speech. For example, to wish someone good morning my characters say `Morning of joy,' and the response is `Morning of light.' When someone gives them a cup of coffee, they tell them `May Allah bless your hands.' Isn't that beautiful?"

In a new interview with Detectives Beyond Borders, Rees talks about his immensely appealing protagonist, Omar Yussef; the models for his characters and stories; and his own favorite crime-fiction writers. One of the latter may surprise you. He also offers good news about the third Omar Yussef mystery. If you're within travelling distance of New York, you can hear Matt Rees read and discuss A Grave in Gaza on Tuesday, Feb. 12 at Partners & Crime Mystery Booksellers in Greenwich Village.
=========================================

Omar Yussef is a high school history teacher. Why a teacher? And why history?

People are always suggesting to me that Palestinians are stuck in the past. Of course many are, but I've found a lot of Palestinians to be far more forward-looking than that. I wanted Omar Yussef to be a Palestinian who understood the past – a historian – but whose focus was on the future, the next generation – a teacher.

You write that the crimes in your novels are based on real events. What event or events made you decide, "Aha, I'm going to write a novel"?

When I was Time magazine's Jerusalem bureau chief, I was in a cabbage field near Bethlehem in 2003, interviewing the mother and wife of a Palestinian gunman who'd been killed by Israeli snipers as he crept home to break the Ramadan fast with his family. They talked about discovering his body in the moonlight and touching his blood to their faces, but they also told me in very profound emotional terms what it had been like to go through such an extreme experience. I remember thinking: "This is too good for Time magazine." That death formed the basis for the first killing in The Collaborator of Bethlehem, the first of my novels.

Why are the Palestinian territories, Bethlehem in the first book, Gaza in the second, ripe settings for crime stories?

Particularly during the intifada, there was no law and order for Palestinians. Gunmen ruled the towns and refugee camps as gangsters. If they occasionally shot at an Israeli, they could operate their rackets freely, and of course Palestinians were the victims. In the lawlessness and the corruption of the police force – which is often involved with the gangs – I see many parallels with the San Francisco and Los Angeles of Hammett and Chandler. Unfortunately for the Palestinians they have very real bad guys, too, many of whom I've met.

In your first novel, Omar Yussef uncovers truth but does not achieve justice. What does this say about life in the territories? About your own conception of what a crime story can and should do?

Mainly it says that I'm not an idealist, but that I am an optimist.

What is your take on the breach of the Rafah border crossing? Hamas emerges having appeared to face down both Israel and Egypt. Will this enhance its standing among ordinary Palestinians, or will people regard it as a cynical power play against Fatah? More to the point, how might it influence your planning for possible future Omar Yussef stories?

Ordinary Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, are sick of Hamas. They elected them to punish Fatah, which was corrupt. They didn't elect them because they believe in an Islamic state. They expected Hamas to negotiate with Israel, but to do so more toughly than Fatah. Instead Hamas allowed itself to be pushed into a corner and continued to behave like an opposition militia. Palestinians want Hamas to behave like a government, and governments don't blow up border fences. As for how this affects Omar Yussef, the book I'm finishing now, in which Omar goes to Nablus, involves Hamas and the kind of tribal/neighborhood conflict that never seems to make it into the newspapers.

The character Khamis Zeydan is a police officer with a dangerous past, yet one who knows his way around the hazards of the territories and is conscious of the corruption around him. How typical a figure is he? What role do men like him play in the territories today? What role will they play in any future Palestinian government?

He's typical of high-level Palestinian military men – though not those with the absolute top jobs. Most of them are very disillusioned. They thought they'd come back from exile to be policemen, and suddenly young gunmen took over the streets and they weren't allowed to do anything about it. Khamis Zeydan is based on a friend of mine who introduced me to many of his colleagues in this discontented echelon of the Palestinian military.

One reviewer invoked Batya Gur's name in discussing your first novel, but I'd call your work a distant cousin of Yasmina Khadra's Brahim Llob novels as well. His writing is far bleaker than yours, but the two of you share the theme that when factions fight, ordinary people get it in the neck. Have you read his work? What crime novelists have made a particularly strong impression on you?

I'm glad you find him bleaker than me, because one American journalist said my books were the bleakest mysteries she'd ever read. I told her I thought they were quite optimistic. I don't know Khadra's books, though I shall pick them up. My primary interests in specifically detective writers are Chandler and Hammett, while I love all of Graham Greene's books, including his mysteries. I'm also a fan of Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano, which proves that I'm not bleak and am in fact rather a breezy sort of guy. Well, maybe not – I also love Inspector Morse.

In the video you made to promote your second novel, you fling aside a copy of Time magazine. Was that just a bit of whimsy at a former employer's expense, or are you commenting on the inability of media accounts to portray the reality of life in the territories?

We originally intended to have a voice-over for the video where I would, at that point, say "You won't find the reality of Palestine in a newspaper or a magazine. For that, you have to read my books and imagine you're looking down the barrel of one of these." Then I lift a gun to the camera. In the end, we liked the music so much that we kept the talking to an absolute minimum, but you can see why I tossed Time. Of course it was also a bit of revenge for all those nights I had to watch my stories being gutted.

A piece in a French newspaper said your work had a "typically colonialist perspective." The writer cited your caustic comments in the first book about the Arab revolts of 1936. How do you answer such criticism? More broadly, what does it feel like to be a crime novelist who is probably questioned more often about politics than about crime writing?

The comments you're referring to were that during the Arab Revolt the "freedom fighters" degenerated quickly into gangs and ended up killing more Arabs than British soldiers or Jewish immigrants. So I would answer that particular French journalist by saying that (a) the numbers don't lie and (b) that's also what Palestinian historians of the period say. And (c) I'd say that if a character says something in a novel that sounds colonialist, that makes that character a colonialist (maybe), but not necessarily the author. Which leads me to the next part of your question: essentially that people look at my novels as non-fiction dressed up as fiction. I wrote these novels to escape politics. When people ask me about politics, I use it as an opportunity to demonstrate that my novels aren't actually political and that the realms of Middle Eastern diplomacy and politics are far closer to fantasy than the fiction I write.

Early in the second novel, after Omar has arrived in Gaza, he asks Khamis Zeydan: "Why are you killing each other?" Is there some significance to that you? Does the Bethlehemite Omar Yussef regard Gaza and Gazans as a place and people apart?

No, he means the senior Fatah people like Khamis Zeydan are killing each other. As they indeed continue to do rather spectacularly throughout the novel. The infighting among the people who were supposed to govern the Palestinians and lead them toward statehood and peace with Israel is one of the main subjects of A Grave in Gaza, my second novel.

Can readers look forward to future Omar Yussef novels?

In a year, Omar Yussef Book III will be out. It's being edited now. It'll be called The Samaritan's Secret and its set in Nablus, mainly in the old casbah.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Matt Rees' Palestine film noir, plus a question on the universality of crime stories

Matt Rees, author of The Collaborator of Bethlehem (The Bethlehem Murders in the UK) and A Grave in Gaza (a.k.a. The Saladin Murders), has joined the ranks of authors using video to promote their work. Rees writes on his blog that: "I was the first to bring detective fiction to Palestine – I'm pretty sure I'm now the first to bring film noir to the Holy Land."

That claim about detective fiction is one to which Rees has given some thought. I told him I'd failed to find any crime fiction on a trip to Tunisia, to which Rees replied:

"Interesting you mention the lack of crime fiction in the Arab world. There are two separate issues: One is that the book market is very small; second, the genre is virtually unknown to Arab literature. My first novel was reviewed in Al-Ayyam, a Ramallah newspaper, a few months ago, and the review was essentially an introduction to detective novels (`So the detective must discover who is really responsible for the crime ...')

"My theory is that the Arab world is very prone to conspiracy theories, but the uncovering of the truth is generally not encouraged by governments or religious establishments – in political terms. Though the detective novel grows out of situations of corruption (Hammett's San Francisco or Chandler's Santa Monica), it also depends on a conception that when right is uncovered it can also be carried through. Unfortunately the Arab world suffers from a lack of that freedom."

And that leads to a difficult but endlessly interesting question: The detective story, essentially an Anglo-French-American creation, has taken up residence in many other cultures and countries. What makes it so adaptable? What adjustments have authors made when introducing it into new countries? And could crime stories potentially find a home in any country?

The video is a noirish trip, with terrific music and perhaps a bit more whimsy than the novel it promotes. And you'll never guess how it ends.



© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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The Collaborator of Bethlehem, Part II

Yes, he does make mistakes and unwarranted assumptions born of overconfidence, as a good amateur detective should.

He is Omar Yussef, the schoolteacher protagonist of The Collaborator of Bethlehem (a.k.a. The Bethlehem Murders) by Matt Beynon Rees (a.k.a. Matt Rees). Or perhaps the line between amateur and professional is meaningless in an infernal world such as Yussef's, where the distinctions between law, terror, honor, corruption and revenge have just about evaporated. To avoid plot spoilers, I won't discuss his mistakes – or his right guesses, for that matter – except to say that even the wildest among them is, sadly, plausible.

Yussef is a Muslim; the friend and former pupil whose life he fights to save is a Christian. Hamas and Fatah are both mentioned, but clan alliances and rivalries and good, old-fashioned greed figure far more prominently. Israeli tanks make one fearsome appearance, but the Palestinians of this Bethlehem do too good a job destroying themselves to need much help from anyone else.

Yussef, the good guy, wins in a sense – Soho Press is about to publish the second novel in the series, so I'm giving away nothing if I say that Yussef does not die. But his triumph is partial. Still, its particular nature (again, I'll give no spoilers) adds to the attraction of this good, flawed, dogged and enormously appealing protagonist.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Matt Rees

The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Matt Beynon Rees chose wisely when he made the protagonist of The Collaborator of Bethlehem a teacher; Palestinians are said to revere education. Furthermore, Rees’ Omar Yussef teaches history, which makes him a plausible mouthpiece for harsh judgments on modern Arab and Palestinian history and current events, judgments that make him an object of suspicion in the West Bank.

His skepticism naturally makes him a good detective, an avocation he exercises when a friend and former pupil is charged with collaborating with Israel in a killing.

As one might expect, the novel asks probing questions about Palestinians, about their horrible and self-destructive internecine fighting, and about their daily lives. I suspect that partisans of Hamas or Fatah might not like the book, but I also suspect that the rest of us might come away from it with a good deal of sympathy for Palestinians as people rather than as symbols.

Yussef is plagued by doubts from time to time. Having cited the aptness of his profession for an amateur detective, I’ll keep my eyes open to see whether he also commits a sin to which an amateur detective should perhaps be especially prone: overconfidence in his own judgments.

N.B. The Collaborator of Bethlehem is the U.S. title for the novel published in the U.K. under the less resonant name The Bethlehem Murders. The U.K. edition also drops the Beynon from Rees’ name.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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