What Next? A Palestinian Whodunit

Here's a plug for our former Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Matt Rees, who has fulfilled the fantasy of many a foreign correspondent by making the leap from journalism to fiction writing. Check out the Washington Post review of his new novel, The Collaborator of Bethlehem, published in the U.S. today by Soho Crime books.
The tale is the first in what Matt intends as a series, The Omar Yussef Mysteries, about a Palestinian schoolteacher turned amateur private detective. In the debut, Yussef launches his own investigation into a murder case in which a former student stands accused. Matt does here what he did in his reporting for TIME as well as in an earlier, much-acclaimed non-fiction work, Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide and Fear: he uncovers the gritty, often disturbing human realities of life in Palestinian society. In fiction or non-fiction that topic can make discouraging reading, but Matt gives his characters heart as he gives his readers a thrill.
Fiction is certainly a means of probing the deeper truths in a way that usually eludes daily or weekly journalism--a reason why many hacks aspire to become novelists, and an excellent reason for picking up Matt's mystery yarn.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo