The Honored Dead: A Story of Friendship, Murder, and the Search for Truth in the Arab World
Written by Joseph Braude
Narrated by Benson Simmonds
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
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About this audiobook
The Arab Islamic world is known for religious extremism, ethnic conflicts, and, now, the overthrow of seemingly unshakable regimes-but if anything has become clear, it's that our understanding of the region remains shrouded and incomplete. The seeds of revolution, radicalism, and-possibly-reform are buried in the individual stories of millions of people whose lives determine the fates of their societies, people whose motivations are as common, and as strange, as our own.
Here is one of those stories-and the story of how this world is being transformed, one life at a time.
Joseph Braude is the first Western journalist ever to secure embed status with an Arab security force, assigned to a hardened unit of detectives in Casablanca who handle everything from busting al-Qaeda cells to solving homicides. One day he's given the file for a seemingly commonplace murder: a young guard at a warehouse killed in what appears to be a robbery gone wrong. Braude is intrigued by the details of the case: the sheer brutality of the murder, the identities of the accused-a soldier-and the victim, a shadowy migrant with links to a radical cleric, and the odd location: a warehouse owned by a wealthy member of one of the few thriving Jewish communities in the Arab world. After interviewing the victim's best friend, who tearfully insists that the true story of the murder has been covered up by powerful interests, Braude commits to getting to the bottom of it.
Braude's risky pursuit of the shocking truth behind the murder takes him from cosmopolitan Marrakesh to the proud Berber heartland, from the homes of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country to the backstreets of Casablanca, where migrants come to make fortunes, jihad, and trouble, but often end up just trying to survive with dignity. The Honored Dead is a timely and riveting mystery about a society in transition, the power of the truth, and the irrepressible human need for justice.
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Reviews for The Honored Dead
5 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm mixed about this book. I love non-fiction and what I'd call literary true crime - a book where a crime is placed in context. TJ English does this really well, particularly in his new book, The Savage City. This was also appealing because of the setting and the broader context of crime in the Arab world. It does this admirably, but left me cold.There is a good explication of Arab culture and the rules of Moroccan societies, but it seems to float underneath larger and more Western judgment - that we all want justice, define justice in the same way, and seek it in the same ways - that justice is one thing no matter what your cultural definitions or context. I'm uncomfortable with the easy ways it is possible to filter the actions, institutions, and values of another culture through the lens of the West without an acknowledgement or awareness of the bias that this represents. We cannot come together nor come to understand each other without accepting that these concepts are deeply rooted in culture and history and that others' values about these concepts are - not necessarily right nor wrong - just different; they exist and have a right to do so. By assuming that we all define the world in the same ways we arrogantly deny others the right to believe in ways that are different from our own and this denial is firmly rooted in outmoded imperialist thought.Good story well-written, but I have problems with the telling and the perceived bias so it just didn't work well for me.