Category: Mystery
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
ISBN-13: 9780618959655
Series: Omar Yussef
Pub. Date: January 2008 (reprint)
Date Read: July 2008
“The curfews and gunfights had destroyed his career, murdered his father and made his mother suicidal. This was the reward for his goodness. Yet the gunmen thrived, they whose accomplishments and talents were of the basest nature, they who would have been obliterated had there been law and order and honor in the town. Perhaps Bethlehem was their town, after all, and it was Omar Yussef who was the outlaw interloper here, peddling contraband decency and running a clandestine trade in morality.”
Omar Yussef, a history teacher in Bethlehem, finds himself trying to solve the murder of a Palestinian guerilla when one of his former students is accused of collaborating with Israelis. George Saba, the former student, assures Yussef that he had nothing to do with the death of the member of the Martyrs Brigade.
Yussef begins his investigation by interrogating the dead man's family and along each step of the way he finds himself getting closer to the leaders of the Martyrs Brigade. Soon Yussef will find just how precarious his safety is and that of his family and friends.
His wife and son also warn him to tread carefully. They see the real world they live in and not the one Yussef sees via his books. They know of killings, how things are hushed up, and basically how to go on living in a place where violence is an everyday occurrence.
Still, he can't give up. Yussef begins to feel like he is the only one left to stand up for the truth and he vows to keep doing just that. He has always been a teacher who fostered intellectual inquiry in his students even if it means locking horns with the school's administrations, parents and other students. It will be up to him to find a solution.
This is quite the story. It starts with a bad situation and only gets worse and the reader can only wonder how it will end and if Yussef will be successful. To me the mystery almost felt secondary to the setting and I don't mean that in a negative way. The clues and resolution are all there but where the author excels is at describing a very turbulent situation and city. It will be interesting to see how this unlikely sleuth will continue to develop in the series.