Fic­tion

Line­up

Liad Shoham; Sara Katai, trans.
  • Review
By – October 22, 2013

This crime nov­el, which has been trans­lat­ed from Hebrew, takes place in Tel Aviv, where a bru­tal rape occurs on a res­i­den­tial street. Detec­tive Eli Nachum is con­vinced he has the per­pe­tra­tor and sets after him like a blood­hound. He des­per­ate­ly wants to move up in his job by prov­ing him­self with this high pro­file case. The oth­er char­ac­ters include Sara Glaz­er, a lone­ly, elder­ly woman with insom­nia who secret­ly uses binoc­u­lars to watch her neigh­bors in the mid­dle of the night; Gila­di, a hun­gry reporter who needs to break a great sto­ry and is sick of being mis­treat­ed by Dori Engel, his obnox­ious, abu­sive edi­tor; Faro, a crime boss with loy­al hench­men, some of whom aren’t too smart; and Ziv Nevo, who is fin­gered as the obvi­ous rapist, but his case isn’t as tight as it should be. Nevo is secret­ly involved with Faro’s syn­di­cate, a liai­son he regrets when he real­izes that he has placed his wife and son at risk. Nevo is will­ing to do any­thing to undo his mis­take and keep his fam­i­ly safe.

This nov­el delves into the thought process­es of both crim­i­nals and law enforcers. We get a sense of the way things work in Israel, with cyn­i­cism and chutz­pah com­ing through the dia­logue. With a sur­pris­ing twist toward the end that reveals a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty, this enjoy­able thriller will hold read­ers’ atten­tion to the end. 

Inter­view

Elise Coop­er’s inter­view with Liad Shohan can be found here.

Miri­am Brad­man Abra­hams, mom, grand­mom, avid read­er, some­time writer, born in Havana, raised in Brook­lyn, resid­ing in Long Beach on Long Island. Long­time for­mer One Region One Book chair and JBC liai­son for Nas­sau Hadas­sah, cur­rent­ly pre­sent­ing Inci­dent at San Miguel with author AJ Sidran­sky who wrote the his­tor­i­cal fic­tion based on her Cuban Jew­ish refugee family’s expe­ri­ences dur­ing the rev­o­lu­tion. Flu­ent in Span­ish and Hebrew, cer­ti­fied hatha yoga instructor.

Discussion Questions