The Collaborator of Bethlehem - Hardcover

Rees, Matt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569474427 ISBN 13: 9781569474426

Publisher: Soho Crime, 2007

Synopsis

For decades, Omar Yussef has taught history to the Muslim and Christian children of Bethlehem. He has managed to stay aloof from the violence swirling around him. Gradually, the Palestinian Christian minority has dwindled. Then George Saba, a favorite former pupil and a Christian, is arrested by the Palestinian guerilla. He is charged with collaborating with the Israelis in the killing of a Palestinian guerrilla. The dead man's wife, also a former pupil, is found murdered next.
George faces imminent execution; the mob is screaming for vengeance; the police want a scapegoat. But Omar cannot believe that George is guilty. Since no one else is willing to risk standing up to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades gunmen, who hold the real power in Bethlehem, it falls to Omar to investigate. But will knowledge of the truth ensure that justice prevails?

About this title

Review

Praise for The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Winner of the CWA John Creasey Dagger

"All it takes is one good man--a detective, of course--to humanize events that confound understanding . . . An astonishing first novel . . . Setting a mystery in the epicenter of a war zone challenges the genre conventions, but it doesn't change the rules. In fact, it clarifies the role of the detective as the voice of reason, crying to be heard above the cacophony of gun-barrel politics."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Rees tells this grim story with skill, specificity and richly detailed descriptions of people and places."
--The Washington Post

"Matt Beynon Rees has taken a complex world of culture clash and suspicion and placed upon it humanity."
--David Baldacci

"A beautifully written story. I have walked the streets of Bethlehem with Omar Yussef, smelled the dust and the fear, tasted his food, shared his anger and his hope. His decency is a light in the gloom. I shall not forget him."
--Anne Perry

"The Collaborator of Bethlehem is the best--and the rarest--sort of mystery: exciting and compelling, but it is also a deeply moving story that will, for many readers, shed much needed light on the conditions in the Palestinian territories. Matt Beynon Rees's ability to blend the political and the emotional is reminiscent of Graham Greene."
--David Liss, author of The Day of Atonement

"Omar Yussef has everything I admire in a detective: humility, humanity, a great faith in the power of knowledge and a few bad habits too!"
--Barbara Nadel, author of The Ottoman Cage

From the Author

This is the U.S. edition of the first book in a series of
Palestinian crime novels by Matt Rees. It's published in the UK by Atlantic
Books under the title THE BETHLEHEM MURDERS, also available on
amazon.co.uk.

Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Crime
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1569474427
• ISBN 13: 9781569474426
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 264