Fic­tion

The Jerusalem File

Joel Stone
  • Review
By – December 20, 2011
Levin, a retired Israeli secu­ri­ty ser­vices offi­cer, is a lon­er. His mar­riage end­ed ami­ca­bly. His chil­dren are grown and liv­ing abroad. Liv­ing in Jerusalem and acute­ly aware of the reli­gious fer­vor and polit­i­cal con­flicts in the area, he leads a self- con­tained life. 

When an acquain­tance asks him to fol­low his wife, Deb­o­rah, and find out whether she is hav­ing an affair, he accepts the offer despite the fact that he con­sid­ers the task rather unsa­vory. It is a chance to use his inves­tiga­tive skills and explore Jerusalem’s rich his­to­ry as he vis­its its col­or­ful neigh­bor­hoods. It pro­vides a stark con­trast to the ter­ror­ist attacks and sui­cide bomb­ings that he wit­ness­es dur­ing his dai­ly rounds. The case may actu­al­ly have a solution. 

As he fol­lows Deb­o­rah, he finds him­self assess­ing her as a poten­tial lover. When the man that she was meet­ing is mur­dered, Levin won­ders whether it was real­ly a sniper’s bul­let that killed him. When Deb­o­rah approach­es him with a strange request, his care­ful­ly con­struct­ed eth­i­cal foun­da­tion is threat­ened. This beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten char­ac­ter study will appeal to both mys­tery buffs and those who enjoy lit­er­ary fiction.
Bar­bara M. Bibel is a librar­i­an at the Oak­land Pub­lic Library in Oak­land, CA; and at Con­gre­ga­tion Netiv­ot Shalom, Berke­ley, CA.

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