Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2009, page 68
Books
The Omar Yussef Mysteries
By Matt Beynon Rees
The Collaborator of Bethlehem
Mariner Books, 2007, paperback, 264 pp. List: $13.95; AET: $11.
A Grave in Gaza
Mariner Books, 2008, paperback, 340 pp. List: $13.95; AET: $11.
The Samaritan’s Secret
Soho Crime, 2009, hardcover, 310 pp. List: $24.95; AET: $18.
Reviewed by Janet McMahon and Donald Neff
THE UNLIKELY hero of Matt Beynon Rees’ mystery trilogy (soon to be a quartet, with a novel set in Jerusalem) is Omar Yussef, a middle-aged schoolteacher of decidedly unheroic proportions. He is just below average height, Rees tells us in A Grave in Gaza, but “appeared even shorter because his shoulders stooped like those of an old man. His hair was white, liver spots stained his balding scalp and his tidy mustache was gray.” |
Despite his fragile appearance, Omar Yussef is not without sardonic humor or prickly pride, much less a reluctant bravery that allows him to see through conspiracies and murder. He has his vanities as well, which include expensive maroon loafers and a Mont Blanc pen. And he is a man with a past, a one-time student radical at Damascus University (where he met Khamis Zeydan, now police chief of Bethlehem). Years of heavy drinking and smoking, since given up, have taken a toll on his health.
As the principal of an UNRWA school in Bethlehem, Omar Yussef first becomes involved in investigation when a former student, a Christian, is accused of leading the Israelis to a wanted resistance fighter. Omar Yussef sets out to prove the young man’s innocence and save his life—but may be too late.
One wonders how a modern-day Palestinian can be a detective for long, however, since the profession would seem to require freedom of movement. That question is answered in A Grave in Gaza, when Omar Yussef is asked to accompany his UNRWA boss, Magnus Wallender, a Swede stationed in Jerusalem, to Gaza. There he investigates the arrest of an Arab U.N. teacher who had uncovered corruption by the local head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In the latest volume, Omar Yussef and his family—including his precocious granddaughter, Nadia, on whom he dotes—are granted permission to attend a friend’s wedding in Nablus. (Despite his promises to Nadia, however, he never manages to take her out for a bite of the city’s famed qanafi, which is too sweet for her grandfather’s taste.) In Nablus Omar Yussef, along with fellow wedding guest Khamis Zeydan, become involved in the theft and mysterious return of a sacred Samaritan scroll, and the search by a World Bank official for $300 million in missing funds controlled by the unnamed late Palestinian president.
Welsh-born author Matt Beynon Rees, Time magazine bureau chief in Jerusalem from 2000 to 2006, writes on his blog, <http://mattbeynonrees.blogspot.com>, that he chose “to look at what goes on inside Palestinian society, rather than focusing on the conflict with Israel.” His decision to write about Palestinians on their own terms certainly is a welcome one—despite the danger that readers who get their information only from the mainstream media might falsely conclude that Muslim-Christian tensions or the existence of armed militias are inherent to Palestinian society, rather than the result of Israel’s claustrophobic chokehold on the people whose land it occupies.
Despite some initial awkwardness regarding Omar Yussef’s involvement in intrigue outside his hometown—he seems to have decided he is a detective, and that’s all there is to it—the series is rich not only in character but in intellectual complexity as well. Bethlehem, Gaza and Nablus are by no means interchangeable backgrounds, and each mystery ends with a surprising twist that represents Omar Yussef’s personal contribution to justice and leaves the reader with something to ponder.
In the violence of occupied Palestine there can be no truly happy endings. Rees writes on his blog that his aim is to present “an accurate portrayal of what a decent, honorable Palestinian faces when he tries to stand up for law and order.” In that he has succeeded admirably.
Rees is a wonderfully subtle writer with a deep understanding of Palestinians and their culture. He gives Israel a pass by ignoring the cruelty of its occupation. But his lapse is compensated for by his vivid portrayal of Palestinian life.Janet McMahon is managing editor of the Washington Report. Donald Neff, Time magazine bureau chief in Jerusalem in the mid-1970s, is author of the Warriors trilogy, 50 Years of Israel (all available from the AET Book Club), and Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy Towards Palestine and Israel Since 1945 (out of print).
SIDEBAR
SPECIAL OFFER: Mention this review and get all three Omar Youssef mysteries (a $52.85 value) for $35 (plus shipping).
