The Jew­ish Police­man by Jonathan Dun­sky is the ninth install­ment in the Adam Lapid mys­tery series. This book is more than just a fast-paced mys­tery nov­el; this time, Dun­sky has giv­en the read­er an incred­i­ble look into the human psy­che, explor­ing themes of resist­ing the temp­ta­tion to seek revenge and find­ing one’s way back to compassion. 

Dunsky’s book is set in a Dis­placed Person’s camp, which is less dis­cussed in much of Holo­caust lit­er­a­ture. This nov­el exam­ines how peo­ple can endure hor­rif­ic atroc­i­ties per­pe­trat­ed by their fel­low man. The char­ac­ters have sur­vived Auschwitz; now the sur­vivors are faced with the dif­fi­cult task of relearn­ing how to live, rebuild­ing their soci­ety, and remem­ber­ing how to treat oth­er peo­ple with dig­ni­ty. Pro­tag­o­nist Adam Lapid is part of this group; he is forced to reck­on with his own demons through­out the nov­el, bat­tling the evil that threat­ens to spill out of him as a result of all he’s lived through. 

When a man is mur­dered, Adam, as a for­mer police detec­tive, is asked to help inves­ti­gate the case. Though he has doubts about his abil­i­ty to be a detec­tive again after the ter­rors he endured in Auschwitz, includ­ing the loss of his own fam­i­ly, he agrees to inves­ti­gate how the man was killed, and why. 

Many char­ac­ters make up the heart of this propul­sive nov­el. There is Samuel Gringauz, the chair­man of the Cen­tral Coun­cil of Lib­er­at­ed Jews in the Amer­i­can Zone of Occu­pa­tion, who enlists Lapid’s help with the case. There is notice­able fric­tion between Lapid, as the detec­tive in charge of this inves­ti­ga­tion, and Fleis­chman, the police­man in charge of the camp. And there is a hint of romance with Lina, who works in an office in the camp. But main­ly, there are the sto­ries of those who have sur­vived bru­tal treat­ment by the Nazis, all of whom are try­ing to find their new reality.

Lapid wants vengeance — he wants to hunt down the Nazis and exact his own jus­tice. But Gringauz sees some­thing bet­ter in Lapid and implores him to take on the inner strug­gle and search for his sense of altruism. 

This cap­ti­vat­ing nov­el illu­mi­nates the back­sto­ry of Dunsky’s inno­v­a­tive his­tor­i­cal mys­ter­ies, lead­ing the read­er into the world of Adam Lapid. The read­er gains insight into how the Holo­caust informed Lapid’s per­son­al­i­ty, his rela­tion­ships, his choice to move to Tel Aviv, and his pas­sion for solv­ing cer­tain kinds of crimes.