Matt Rees's Blog - Posts Tagged "crime"

People who don't know any better sometimes tell me that I'm a good writer and they'd like to see me write a "real novel," instead of my Palestinian crime novels. Usually I tell them Raymond Chandler once wrote that there are just as many bad "real" literary novels written as bad mysteries -- but the bad literary novels just don't get published. Now I'll be able to add something else to my always polite correction of this misconception about crime novels. That's because of a review of my new Palestinian crime novel THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET in the Feb. 7 issue of The Tablet, a British magazine published for the Roman Catholic community. The Tablet makes THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET "Novel of the Week" and reviewer Anthony Lejeune writes that it's "a novel thick with atmosphere, memorable, unusual and the clearest possible proof that mystery fiction can be moulded into any literary form and is often highly instructive."

In popular blog Bookslut, Colleen Mondor has a terrific review of a series of books set overseas, giving it a particular slant toward young readers. She designates my new Palestinian crime novel, THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET, her "cool read" of the week. You can see other reviews by Colleen here, but meanwhile this is what she writes about my novel:

The Samaritan’s Secret, third in the Omar Yussef series by Matt Beynon Rees, continues his exploration of Palestinian life. Following the first book The Collaborator of Bethlehem and the second, A Grave in Gaza, this entry sends Yussef to the city of Nablus where the theft of a religious artifact from a small relatively unknown group sets off a mystery involving hundreds of millions of missing dollars and the political machinations of Hamas, Fatah and many who have no allegiance to anyone other than themselves. As he did in the first two novels, Yussef is unwavering in his dedication to the dead. This unlikeliest of heroes, a history teacher, puts his knowledge of the region to good use as he gets to the bottom of a murder and determines just how much can be revealed so that no one else ends up dead.

While Rees is clearly accomplished at crafting tight plots and surprises, it is his depth of knowledge about the Middle East that truly elevates these titles. Many Western readers will find the mysteries alone appealing and then fall into the twists and turns of contemporary Palestinian life. Rees, who lives in Jerusalem and was Time magazine’s bureau chief between 2000 and 2006, makes it clear that whatever we think we might know about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it pales in comparison to an intimate portrayal of the day-to-day reality. The best part is that the Yussef titles are focused on Palestinian life and the characters, good and bad, are richly drawn examples of the men and women the media all too often shows only as caricatures -- as the clichéd grieving parent, enraged militant, tortured child. Rees gives us families like any other, committed friendships, and leaders motivated far more by greed than religious devotion. He gives readers people they can recognize and understand and thus he transforms a part of the world that has been determinedly presented as foreign into someplace we recognize; someplace that in many ways we already know.

The Omar Yussef mysteries are an excellent way for curious minded older teens to learn about this tremendously troubled and significant region. While The Samaritan’s Secret is a very intense read with a surprising number of personal moments, I recommend readers start with the first book so they can get to know Yussef from the beginning. I find myself enjoying this series more and more with each new title and being surprised all over again by how little I know about Palestinian life.

On my recent tour of Germany, I was interviewed (in English) on the 3Sat tv channel's stage at the Leipzig Book Fair. Of the big Germany book festivals, this is the one that gives the most time to readers and authors (the biggest, Frankfurt, is mainly for publishers to get a little more than tipsy together -- oh and to do some deals, of course). I was interviewed by a lovely, knowledgable German journalist named Tina Mendelsohn about my second Palestinian crime novel A Grave in Gaza, which is just out in German and proving very successful there. It was a bit of a demanding situation to maintain concentration, with thousands of people wandering by me only a few yards away -- many of them dressed rather disconcertingly as Japanese cartoon characters...But it was fun, too.

The Guardian recently ran an interesting article seeking to explain the popularity of crime novels set in "exotic" locations -- either written by locals or by foreigners living there. The article makes a few worthwhile points about the basics of this new-ish sub-genre. It also includes a list of the top five such "foreign" sleuths recommended by the newspaper:
Inspector Chen -- from the novels of Qiu Xialong
Dr Siri -- Colin Cotterill
Precious Ramotswe -- Alexander McCall Smith
Yashim Togalu -- Jason Goodwin
and, of course,
my own Omar Yussef, the Bethlehem schoolteacher who's forced into detective work by the lawlessness of Palestine.

Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell
US: New Press. April 1, 2009. Isbn: 1595584366

In his 26th novel, Sweden’s top crime writer has eschewed the genre that has seen him sell 30 million books. Even so, fans of his Inspector Wallander novels will find much of what they love about the Skåne detective in the narrator of “Italian Shoes”—only given even more depth by the constant focus on a man struggling with guilt and emotional silence.

Fredrik is a surgeon who abandoned his career a decade ago because of a mistake he made during an operation. He refused to acknowledge his error and went to live alone on a remote island. One morning he sees a woman standing on the frozen sea. He discovers that she’s the girlfriend he abandoned as a young man.

Harriet’s arrival forces Fredrik to meet a series of people from his past. He thought he could cut himself off on his island. As he realizes he can’t, he finds the allure of companionship attractive, but struggles to manage these new relationships.

This is a devastatingly honest and keenly personal novel. It ranks with Norwegian Per Petterson’s “Out Stealing Horses” for its marvelous portrayal of withdrawal from society—and its consequences. Mankell writes with a measured pace that’s in tune with the frozen weather and the slow body of the aging Fredrik.

Though “Italian Shoes” is a departure for Mankell, he examines a topic common to crime novels—death. But he reverses the crime novel’s way of looking at death. He’s not concerned here with how death occurs. Rather he wants to understand why anyone should care whether they live or die.

Crime writers create a violent death, to show how the remaining characters experience life in extreme circumstances. Here Mankell depicts a man who essentially stopped living and who rediscovers life when faced with the impending death of Harriet.

“Before I die,” Fredrik says, “I must know why I’ve lived.” In his dour, bitter way, Mankell has the answer.

Where better to send a bunch of crime writers and their fans than a prison? The Horsens Crime Festival in Jutland, the part of Denmark linked to mainland Europe, did just that last month.

Horsens prison was in use until three years ago. By the end it was a fairly humane place – this is Denmark, after all. But the museum set up in its old cells demonstrates how rough it was back in the mid-1800s. There are various implements for punishment, including a table with leather restraints for the waist, wrists and ankles. Walking through the upper galleries on my own, I looked out of the window and watched a car drive by beyond the walls. I felt a sudden pang of such desolating loneliness that I hurried down to the yard, where the crime festival was being held just to be among people.

(Not before I checked out the display of confiscated pornography from different eras and a rather horrifying pair of brown leather mittens to be locked onto the hands of inveterate Onanists.)

Almost all the authors were Scandinavian, which means that many of them were familiar names, as that sub-genre appears to go from strength to strength. (Swede Camilla Läckberg, however, wasn’t there, which was a shame because I’ve been wanting to meet her ever since I saw the picture of her taking a bubble bath on her website – you think I’m kidding? I bet it gets a lot of traffic.) Organized by the Horsens Library, the only other non-Nordic writer was Don Winslow. One to watch, from what I saw was a smooth and rather dapper Swedish writer named Mons Kallentoft.

My Danish publisher Gyldendal brought me to the festival, where I was interviewed by Niels Lillelund, culture correspondent with Jyllands-Posten. That’s certainly the most famous Danish newspaper where I live. You may remember it’s the paper which published the famous cartoons of Muhammad, which sent millions of Muslims into a rage. Niels, I hasten to add, didn’t draw the cartoons, but he did do a fine job of interviewing me at the book festival about my second Palestinian crime novel A Grave in Gaza, which is just out now in Danish.

Horsens is a quiet provincial town with a charming central section where the croci were just in bloom in the lush grass of the city park. We were there long enough for my editor Helle Stavnem to translate the names of some Danish pastries (one which has a large blob of yellow curd at the center is called “the baker’s bad eye.” Yum.)

The visit to Horsens was over quickly, however, and we were off to Copenhagen, where I stayed right beside the University library, around the corner from Tycho Brahe’s observatory. (There are various theories about Brahe’s possible murder by rival astronomer Johannes Kepler, which I was discussing only today with Tel Aviv University optical historian Raz Chen….)

The palace complex in Copenhagen is quite beautiful, particularly in the early morning fog that comes in off the sea smelling of lentil soup. The Royal Library was my favorite building, or more precisely the wide courtyard leading to it, grassy and empty but for a woman smoking a cigarette on a bench and a gardener pruning bushes. The lights from the red brick building were inviting in the overcast day and made me hanker for my university days.

Outside the palace, on the wall of the canal, a warning to boats: “Proceed with caution. Sculpture under water. Merman with seven sons.” Below the freezing water, eight figures, a man and seven boys. Eerily their heads were oxidized turquoise so that they stood out from their bodies. They seemed to be grasping for the surface.

Another highlight: the Frue Kirke, the cathedral of “Kooben-hawn” (as they call it). Very Spartan design and quite striking.

I dropped by my local agent, Eva Haagerup, at Leonhardt & Hoier. The office is in a neighborhood of central Copenhagen called Pisserenden, because – there’s no nice way to put this – it used to be a low-rent area where people would piss in the streets. Now it’s rather nice with a lot of bars and restaurants, but Eva says that at night there’s still some outdoor watersports.

On the way to the airport, I stopped at the national tv channel for an interview with an energetic, intelligent journalist named Adam Holm. Why can’t US tv people be like this? They’re all so blow-dried and empty. Adam and I arranged to meet in Jerusalem some time.

I picked up a couple of books: one by a Dane whose previous books I’ve enjoyed, Peter Hoeg (“The Quiet Girl”), and another a historical novel about Copenhagen by a Swede (“The Royal Physician's Visit”). I’ll blog about them soon.

One of my favourite blogs is Declan Burke's excellent Crime Always Pays, which does for Irish crime fiction what the famous toucan does for Guinness. As a Welsh crime writer, I assume I'm the next best thing to an Irish crime writer, so Declan includes me today in his long-running interview series "Ya Wanna Do It Here or Down the Station, Punk." Find out what I'd want in return for strangling puppies and biting the heads off chickens....

Sometimes people talk about crime novels as though they were all the same. The sheer number of different names for variants of the crime novel proves that isn’t true.

Police procedural. Mystery novel. Thriller. Cosy. Exotic detective. Supernatural. I used to think there was little real difference, but then my UK publisher told me he wanted to change the title of my first novel “The Collaborator of Bethlehem.” He thought it sounded like a thriller (which men typically buy) and he wanted it to be clear that it was a mystery (so that women would buy it.) He changed the title in Britain to “The Bethlehem Murders.” I had to acknowledge that he was right: it sounds more like a mystery, doesn’t it.

And that’s only in English.

As I travel around to promote my books in different countries (I’m published in 22 countries these days), I’ve noticed that there are interesting variations on the names we use in English for crime novels. Some of them are quite entertaining, and some of them tell us something revealing about how the genre developed in that country.

Take Italy. Mystery novels there are called “gialli,” or yellows. That’s because traditionally the genre was published with a yellow cover. Even today the mystery shelves of Italian bookshops are largely yellow.

Color is the theme also in Spain, where crime novels are “novelas negras,” black novels. According to a source of mine on the literary desk of El Pais, the big Spanish newspaper, this harks back to the old “Serie noire” of French publisher Gallimard. That series introduced the crime novel to Spain. So noir, or black, became the identifying color for a crime novel.

A “roman noir,” black novel, is also one of the ways of referring to a crime novel in France, because of that Gallimard series. But the most common slang for a mystery in French is “un polar.” It’s a contraction of “roman policier,” police novel, and was first recorded in 1968. If you ask most French people to explain the origin of the word “polar,” they can’t tell you: the abbreviation has become so common, they’ve forgotten its rather simple derivation.

Germany (as well as the Scandinavian countries) calls a crime novel “ein Krimi,” short for the word Kriminelle, criminal. No surprise there. It’s a catch-all for thrillers and detective stories of all kinds.

There is, however, an amusing sub-genre in German. In English, the “cosy” refers to Miss Marple-type novels in which the detective is an amateur, usually a lady (not just a woman), probably an inhabitant of a quaint village, investigating a murder in a country house or a vicarage.

The Germans call these cosies “Häkel-Krimis“. Miriam Froitzheim, who works at my German publisher C.H. Beck Verlag in Munich, translates this as “Crochet Crime Novels.” Because, as she puts it, the detective “puts her crochet gear away to solve the murder.”

I’ll keep scouting for interesting ways of describing crime novels around the world. But if you know of some others, tell me about them.

Murder in the Latin Quarter
by Cara Black
Soho Crime, isbn 1569475415

Just when our detective is set to get down to some normal, profitable work, a woman walks into her office with a story that sets our mystery on a personal track. It’s a tested opening for a detective novel, but Cara Black’s version of it has an originality and freshness that works well. The detective is Aimée Leduc, a Parisian computer-security expert, and the mystery woman is an illegal Haitian immigrant who claims to be Leduc’s half-sister. On her first attempt to get more details from the supposed sister, Leduc discovers the murdered body of a Haitian scientist and realizes that the newcomer may be involved in something more than family genealogy.

The ninth episode in Black’s series of Paris detective novels takes Leduc through a plot involving voodoo, corrupt businessmen, and scandal in Haiti. But it remains rooted in the streets of Paris. Leduc ends up crawling through windows and tunnels, covered in the muck of the City of Light. It’s a good image for the way Black keeps the novels grounded there. Paris may be everyone’s idea of a romantic city, but to those who know it it’s also a place of “diversity”—a nice modern way of saying that there are many awful inequities. “Murder in the Latin Quarter” is a fine way to slap some reality onto those vacation memories and to get a picture of the varied life in the French capital.

As an episode in a lengthy series of novels, there are also intriguing developments in Leduc’s obsession with family--her radical mother abandoned her as a girl, and her policeman father was murdered, so it’s easy to see why she ponders the issue a lot. The possible blood connection to the Haitian woman drives Leduc through the dangers of the book, and by the end it’s clear that the same urge will be eating at her until the welcome arrival of the next novel by Cara Black.

Trust No One by Gregg Hurwitz
St. Martin’s Press. To be published 23 June

The key to a first-rate thriller is for the main character to come up against a dead end many times during the book. The reader, knowing the forces arrayed against our hero and desperate to save him from more danger, each time wills him to use this excuse to abandon his quest. Of course, readers wouldn’t care at these turning points if the hero wasn’t a well-formed character whose humanity has drawn us to him, and that’s the other important element in the genre. Naturally the hero doesn’t quit, and our author takes us into the last segment of the book where the plot unravels and the twists snap us upright in our chairs.

Gregg Hurwitz fulfills all these criteria with real style in “Trust No One,” his new novel. It’d be worth reading if only for the startling denouement in which the hero battles against powerful forces – the Secret Service among others. But the drive of the book comes from the scars of his destroyed family. By the end of the book Hurwitz has tied a message of redemption into the fast-paced action.

"Trust No One" begins with Nick Horrigan catapulted out of the quiet life he’s lived for years. His stepfather, a Secret Service agent, was killed when Nick was a teen. Nick blames himself. As part of a cover-up, he was forced by other agents to go on the run. He’s been lonely and guilt-ridden for a decade. Now the Secret Service arrives through his window… and he’s not lonely any more.

A man threatening to blow up a California nuclear facility hands a key to Horrigan before he dies. As Horrigan tries to figure out what the key is for and why the man gave it to him, he’s drawn into a mystery that leads right back to his stepfather’s killing and into the upper echelons of the US political system.

Readers might detect an element of the “family at risk” sub-genre that Harlan Coben has perfected. Hurwitz does it with all the skill of Coben, but with a twist. In his rendition, the family isn’t only in need of rescue — it’s the reason for all the risk in the first place.

“Trust No One” is Hurwitz’s ninth novel, coming two years after the excellent “The Crime Writer”. He also writes for Marvel comics and is a screenwriter. Once you’ve read all his novels and comics, you might be intrigued to try “A Tempest, A Birth and Death: Freud, Jung, and Shakespeare’s Pericles,” which he published in the Summer 2002 edition of “Sexuality and Culture” (Rutgers University). If that sounds like a departure for a writer of thrillers, remember that "Pericles" is the story of the Prince of Tyre, who's on the run from assassins in ancient Phoenicia...