The Bethlehem Murders by Matt Rees

Published: Atlantic Books, 2006
ISBN: 9 781843 546030

First line: Omar Yussef, a teacher of history to the unhappy children of Dehaisha refugee camp, shuffled stiffly up the meandering road, past the gray, stone homes built in the time of the Turks on the edge of Beit Jala.

When a young member of the Palestinian resistance is shot dead near his home on the outskirts of Bethlehem, George Saba, a Christian, is arrested as the collaborator who led the Israelis to him. As a member of the minority Christian community, he is a convenient scapegoat, but Omar Yussef, his old teacher and friend, is convinced that George has been framed.

With George under threat of imminent execution, Omar takes leave from his teaching job to carry out his own investigation. His enquiries bring him up against the Martyrs Brigade, the resistance fighters who effectively run the town. To Omar, they are no more than a gang of corrupt and violent thugs. Everyone, including the police and legal system are powerless against them, and it seems Omar is the only one interested in the truth. As he moves closer to discovering that truth, he puts himself and his family in danger.

THE BETHLEHEM MURDERS is a fascinating book, as much for its insight into the effect of the ongoing conflict in Palestine on the lives of ordinary people, as it is for the mystery. Rees brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of a town in the middle of a battlezone, and a people living with daily violence, fear and uncertainty.

Rees has created a very different and exceptional hero in Omar Yussef. A middle-aged school teacher with a full set of human foibles, he is a man of great integrity, who ultimately cares more about the truth than his own safety. He hates what has happened to his town, and he mourns the time in the past when Christian and Muslim could live together in harmony.

There are some horrific and brutal scenes, made all the more so by Rees' note at the beginning of the book which states that all the crimes in the book were based on real events in Bethlehem. Omar Yussef 's quiet, cynical humour provides a few lighter moments in an otherwise rather bleak book. Rees is a wonderful storyteller and this beautifully written book brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion. I look forward to reading more of Omar Yussef's adventures.

This book also goes by the title of THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM (USA).

Matt Rees is a journalist who has worked in the Middle East for more than 10 years. He has written two more books featuring Omar Yussef, THE SALADIN MURDERS (or A GRAVE IN GAZA in the USA - why do they do that?), and THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET (which rather surprisingly appears to have the same title on both sides of the pond). You can find more information at Matt Ree's website.

Doors Open by Ian Rankin

Published: Orion, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7528-9071-5

First line: The open door was only yards away, and beyond it lay the outside world, eerily unaffected by anything happening inside the abandoned snooker hall.

Mike Mackenzie is very rich and very bored, so when a friend suggests the perfect crime he is more than a little interested. Professor Robert Gissing, the head of the Art School, annoyed about the amount of art locked away from public view, in private collections and warehouses, proposes the “repatriation of some of those poor imprisoned works of art”.

Mike, Gissing and another friend, banker Allan Cruikshank, devise a plan to use the annual Doors Open day to steal a number of paintings from the National Gallery of Scotland's warehoused collection and make it appear that nothing is actually missing. As their plans begin to take shape they realise they are going to need some 'professional' help. A chance encounter with Chib Calloway, a local gangster and an old school acquaintance of Mike's, suddenly makes it all possible.

But it all starts to go very wrong when Mike finds he is much more deeply involved in the criminal world than he ever wanted to be. Bringing Chib into the plan may not have been such a good idea after all. But Chib is not their only worry – there's the dogged policeman, the talented but dangerously mischievous student, the greedy girlfriend, not to mention the very large Norwegian bikie called Hate.

DOORS OPEN is the eagerly awaited first post-Rebus book by Ian Rankin. It is not a totally new work, but a reworked and extended version of a serialised story originally written for the New York Times. Set in the Edinburgh art world, it is a very different environment to that inhabited by Rebus, however there are some common themes. The two faces of Edinburgh again feature strongly and the association of characters from both sides has echoes of Rebus and Cafferty, but Mike and Chib are quite different characters, and their relationship is very different as well.

While DOORS OPEN does not have the depth of the Rebus books, it is written with Rankin's usual flair, and so can't fail to entertain. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is - a terrific fast paced thriller. Fairly lightweight but with a dark edge, the plot has enough twists and turns to make for a satisfying read. The book really comes into its own in the last third when it becomes much edgier, and I had trouble putting it down from that point. Much as I enjoyed this book, I'm hoping that Rankin was just using it as a palate cleanser before returning to something with a bit more substance.

Ian Rankin lives in Edinburgh and is the author of the wonderful Inspector Rebus series. More information can be found at Ian Rankin's website.

A Snowball in Hell by Christopher Brookmyre

Published: Little Brown, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4087-0062-4
Pages: 393

First line: Ladies and gentlemen, roll up! Roll on up! Step inside!

Are you sick of reality tv? Tired of the endless parade of vapid ‘celebrities’ it creates? Simon Darcourt is, and his response to it is certainly turning (and in some cases, removing) heads. Darcourt, aka the Black Spirit, is a hired assassin who has been keeping a low profile ever since the spectacular failure of his last job. But now he's decided to come out of retirement, and with the help of the Internet, is creating quite a stir with his very own reality show, one that his celebrity contestants are literally dying to be part of.

With the body count rising, the police call in Detective Angelique de Xavia, formerly a Glasgow police officer who is now working with an anti-terrorism task force based in Paris. Angelique has crossed paths with Darcourt before and knows how dangerous he is. She also knows that if she is going to stop him, she is going to need help – the special kind of help only her old lover Zal Innez, bank robber and magician, can provide. But first she has to find him, and then keep him from being arrested.

A SNOWBALL IN HELL brings together characters from two of Brookmyre’s previous books, A BIG BOY DID IT AND RAN AWAY and THE SACRED ART OF STEALING in a story that is a witty, sharp and sarcastic poke at the cult of celebrity. Nothing is as it seems in this book, and just when you think you’ve finally figured out what’s really going on, Brookmyre pulls off another twist. Although it takes a while to set up all the characters and bring them together, the complex and pacy plot makes this darkly comic book a real page turner.

This is Brookmyre in full rant mode and his amusing diatribes on celebrity and media struck a chord with me. He seems to be one of those authors you either ‘get’ or you don’t, and if, like me, you are in the first category, then you’ll love this book. While reading this, I did start to wonder what sort of person Brookmyre had turned me into, as I at times found myself rather guiltily cheering on Darcourt and laughing at some very gruesome, albeit imaginative, murders!

Christopher Brookmyre’s website is well worth a look.

Wallander telemovies bought by channel 7

I read in the SMH today that channel 7 have bought Kenneth Branagh's Wallander series. Filmed earlier this year in Sweden, the three 90 minute episodes are based on the Henning Mankell novels Sidetracked, One Step Behind and Firewall. I'm still not sure about the idea of Branagh in the role of Wallander, but look forward to the series anyway.

Kenneth Branagh as Kurt Wallander Celebrity photo

This BBC series is apparently due to begin screening in the UK sometime this month, but there is no word yet on a screening date for Australia. Let's hope the network treats the series and its fans with more respect than has sometimes been the case in the past with the commercial networks and non-mainstream series.

The Pyramid by Henning Mankell

Published: Harvill Secker, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-846-55098-0

When Kurt Wallander first appeared in 1990 he was a senior police officer, 42 years old and divorced. The five stories in this collection fill in Wallander's back story, from his first years in the police force until the beginning of that first book, Faceless Killers.

The stories begin when a 21 year old Wallander finds his elderly neighbour shot dead. He is still a uniformed police officer in Malmo, but with a transfer to Criminal Investigation pending, his future boss encourages his involvement in the investigation of the apparent suicide.

A routine call on his way home on Christmas Eve 1975 turns into a terrifying couple of hours for Wallander in ‘The Man with the Mask’. In this suspenseful short story Wallander is held hostage by an armed and desperate man. Despite the circumstances, Wallander’s compassion and social conscience are evident.

By the third story, ‘The Man on the Beach’, and after a gap of 12 years, Wallander is settled in Ystad as a Chief Inspector, and all the familiar supporting characters from the books are there. When a taxi driver finds his passenger dead in the back seat, tests reveal he had been poisoned. Wallander discovers the long-standing obsession that led to the man’s death.

A man is found bashed to death in his studio in ‘Death of the Photographer’. Why someone who led such an apparently dull and routine life would be subject to such a brutal attack is mystifying, but the investigation reveals that the man had a secret life.

The last story, which gave the collection its name, is novella length, and takes place in December 1989. It leads right up to the beginning of Faceless Killers - literally. In a clever touch, Mankell brings the beginning of Faceless Killers into the last page of The Pyramid. In this complex story, Wallander and his team are stretched to the limit investigating several seemingly unrelated crimes: the crash of an unidentified small plane, drugs, and several apparently unconnected murders.

I found The Pyramid an extremely satisfying collection of stories. All the elements that helped form the Wallander we have come to know from the novels are here: Mona, the woman he married; his eccentric father, and their difficult relationship; and Rydberg, his mentor. And throughout is the theme common to the books, of a changing society – what was happening to Sweden?

These are typical Wallander stories, with the longer stories demonstrating the complex plots Mankell is known for. From that first case, Wallander displays the investigative style he will manifest throughout his career: the intuitive leaps, doggedness, tendency to make mistakes, and go it alone, often putting himself at risk in the process.

The stories chart the progress of Wallander’s seemingly always doomed relationship with Mona, first as girlfriend, then wife and ex-wife. The conflict between his career and the relationship is clear from the beginning. Even when Wallander is married to her, Mona’s role in the stories is insignificant, and she remains a shadowy figure in the background.

Rydberg, the mentor whose wisdom he constantly refers to in the novels, is likewise hardly any more fleshed out. Wallander’s early years in Ystad, when Rydberg’s guidance would have been most evident, are not covered in any of the stories. Rydberg spends a lot of the time off sick, so we see only a little interaction between them.

According to Mankell’s Foreword to The Pyramid, this collection came into being when he realised that he had started writing stories in his head that took place long before that day in January 1990 when the Wallander series began. Two of the stories have not been published before.

Most short story collections lend themselves to being dipped into, picking a story here and a story there. However, The Pyramid is better read as a whole from beginning to end. The Pyramid is essential reading for fans of the Kurt Wallander series, but reads well on its own, and it would work well as a first introduction to Wallander for newcomers to the series.

Anthony Award winners

It seems to be award season at the moment. The Anthony Awards are presented annually at the Bouchercon mystery convention, which is being held in Baltimore this year. This year's winners are:

Best novel:
Laura Lippman - What the Dead Know

Best first novel:
Tana French - In the Woods

Best paperback original:
P.J. Parrish - A Thousand Bones

Short story:
Laura Lippmann - Hardly Knew Her (story available in PDF)

Critical work:
Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley - Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

Special Services:
Jon and Ruth Jordan - Crime Spree Magazine

Web Site:
Stan Ulrich and Lucinda Surber - Stop, You're Killing Me!

A list of all the nominees can be found at the 2008 Anthony Awards site.

Davitt Award Winners

The winners of the Davitt Awards which were presented last night have already been announced on other blogs, and if you head over to Karen of AustCrime's post you'll find links to further information about all the winners:

• Best crime novel - Katherine Howell for Frantic.
• Best young adult - Mandy Sayer for The Night has a Thousand Eyes.
• Best true crime - Janette Fife-Yeomans for Killing Jodie.
• Readers choice award - Lindy Cameron for her editing of Scarlet Stiletto: the First Cut.

Congratulations to all!

I've only read Katherine Howell's book, and I can say it was a very well-deserved win. Frantic was a terrific read, and in the reading notes I made at the time I said:

Paramedic Sophie Phillips's life falls apart when her police officer husband, Chris, is gunned down on their doorstep, and their baby son is taken. The police believe the attack was motivated by Chris's involvement in, or knowledge of, police corruption. But Sophie thinks it may be a result of her own actions. With her husband in intensive care, Sophie cruises the streets trying to find her son. As the days wear on, an increasingly desperate Sophie enlists the aid of Chris's partner in a daring and dangerous plan to discover what has happened to her baby. The pace of this thriller was exhausting, and the sense of urgency kept me turning the pages at an ever increasing speed. Excellent first novel from an author to watch.