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    The Bethlehem Murders
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    The Bethlehem Murders
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    The Bethlehem Murders
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Bethlehem Murders

    Written by Matt Rees

    Narrated by Daniel Philpott

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    For decades, Omar Yussef has been a teacher of history to the children of Bethlehem. When a favourite former pupil, George Saba, is arrested for collaborating with the Israelis in the killing of a Palestinian guerrilla, Yussef is convinced that he has been framed. With George facing imminent execution Yussef sets out to prove his innocence. As Yussef falls foul of his headmaster and the local police chief, time begins to run out for Saba. But with no one else willing to stand up for the truth, it is up to Yussef act, even as bloodshed and heartbreak surround him...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd Audio
    Release dateAug 1, 2008
    ISBN9781407428345
    Unavailable
    The Bethlehem Murders

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    Reviews for The Bethlehem Murders

    3.5/5

    134 ratings14 reviews

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    • 3/5
      An interesting mystery set in Palestine (obviously).
    • 5/5
      A powerful novel that shows what crime fiction can be at its very best -- a riveting picture of a time and place, and a moving story of people who seem all too real. Omar Yussef is a history teacher at a UN school, a modest man who tries to maintain relationships with people, not political theories. When a Christian former pupil of his is charged with collaboration and murder, Omer sets out to prove him innocent. The effort leads him into danger, and into interlocking webs of plot and counterplot, where "good" and "bad" mean only what is politically convenient. Most of the actors are Palestinian, with the Israelis a powerful and threatening force in the background. All in all, it adds up to a chilling view of what life is like for Palestinians in the West Bank. What lifts it into the realm of literature (why can't crime fiction be serious fiction) is the humanity that remains, despite everything.
    • 4/5
      Normally, a story that takes place in Israel and involves its Arab population will concentrate on the struggle between the two peoples. Although that struggle is part of this story, it is not at the forefront. Rather, Rees concentrates on the internal dealings of the Palestinians in Bethlehem. Due to his having lived extensively in Israel, Rees has a lot of insight into the life of this population and it shows. The reader is introduced to characters who could easily have stepped straight off any Israeli street. Rees also uses real events and crimes in his story, although he weaves a completely fictional story around them, which creates an urgency and a sadness I don't often see in regular mysteries. The outcome is different than most other stories: although the mystery is solved and the murderer revealed, true justice may not prevail. Our "detective" is also not a police officer, but rather an old school-teacher whose emotional ties to his people and his family and friends make him take on the role of justice-seeker. It is a moral choice for him rather than an ethical and his own fragility raises the stakes of the story sky high.
    • 5/5
      Omar Youssef is in his mid-50s, a teacher at a UN school in Palestine's West Bank. He struggles every day with his conviction that the cult of violence is no way to combat historic injustices, even as he realizes that even in hopes of unmasking a murderer, he can't approach the Israeli authorities for assistance. Indeed, for a novel set in the West Bank, the Israelis are noticeably absent from the drama, which revolves around the tensions within the Palestinian community, all of which Rees does a superb job of delineating and distinguishing. When a young man -- a rebel and 'martyr' -- is gunned down outside his home, all assume that he was betrayed, and that the culprit is a Palestinian Christian, a former student and close friend of Omar's. Omar can't bring himself to believe it, and the plot unfolds from there. Rees is obviously very familiar with life in the Arab West Bank, and does a tremendous job of portraying it from the nuances -- the mannerisms, the phrases -- to the bigger themes, such as the importance of tribe and relationships (the fact that fathers, on the birth of their eldest son, become known as Abu (name of son) as an honorific becomes an important turning point in the narrative). Rees doesn't shy away from violence or even tragedy, all of which are too much part of the real backdrop in which his fictional characters. Omar Yussef, however, even as he deplores what his students are learning outside the classroom ("there was such violence even in his girls that it shocked him. No matter how he tried to liberate the minds of Dehaisha's children, there were always many others working still more diligently to enslave them") has found himself a mission: being a voice of reason, no matter the cost.I promptly went out and downloaded onto my Kindle the next three books in the series, as well as an earlier non-fiction book by Rees that I hadn't run across before, but that explores some of the same themes that I saw pop up in this novel. It's rare to find a mystery novel that transcends its genre and that doesn't avoid the ugly realities of life or somehow 'pretty them up'. There are disturbing moments in this book, but they aren't there for effect, as in some slasher novel, but because that is the reality of the world in which Rees has set his characters. In a way, it's like reading the newspaper or magazine articles -- but really getting inside the lives of the people in the region, and coming to grips with their limited options and understanding some of their conflicts and decisions. We too often see the rest of the world in black and white; here's a book that emphasizes the shades of grey. Even Omar Yussef is no textbook hero -- he's an alcoholic who's been on the wagon for years, but whose hands still shake, to the scorn of the self-righteous and devout Muslims around him. Recommended very highly to anyone who likes a gritty mystery full of detail and compelling characters; those who appreciate that life has no easy answers. (Not for anyone who is a cozy mystery addict, however...)
    • 4/5
      Excellent book, the first in Rees' Omar Yussef series.Yussef is an older man, a teacher in a refugee school in Bethlehem.
    • 4/5
      A remarkable story difficult to put down once you start to read. The author has captured the atmosphere and terror of the area. He demonstrates through the narrative, the tortured complexity of this part of the World. The brutality of the life but also the age old attitudes of the people. Their respect for the courtesies that have been part of their way of life for generations which value respect for the individual. He has also demonstrated the corrosive nature of the conflicts that have destroyed so much of the area.
    • 3/5
      A good (not great) mystery, set in the occupied West Bank. The author is a journalist, and sometimes it feels very much like he's reporting on the place (instead of channeling the actual feelings of the characters). But the story -- about an aging teacher trying to solve the killing of a young militant -- carries it along against an interesting background of the politics.
    • 3/5
      A good story, complex and interesting characters, a captivating mystery, cultural and political insights, philosophical musings...I'll read more in this series. I feel like I know a little more about what it might be like to actually live on the West Bank.
    • 4/5
      "The Collaborator of Bethlehem" presents us with an unlikely detective, Omar Yussef. Actually, he's not a detective at all, but a grandfather and a schoolteacher in a UN school in the Palestinian territories. He can be short-tempered and impulsive in the conclusions he draws. He can be cranky, and those he is beloved by some, is considered with suspicion and contempt by others.

      Setting a mystery in the complex political context of Palestine adds a lot of flavor to the story. I have spent time myself in the so-called "Christian Triangle" where this novel is set (comprised of the three municipalities of Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahour), and I could envision all the scenes of the story. All seemed quite plausible and real.

      One reservation: I suppose it's difficult to enter any discussion of the Palestinian situation without entering into some kind of political debate--even if what we're talking about is only a murder mystery. But in Matt Rees' allusions to the status of Palestinian Christians, he seems to leave the impression that the decimation of the Christian population in the Holy Land is largely due to hostile Christian-Muslim relations. Unquestionably, those relations have deteriorated over the years. But in my time in Bethlehem and environs, all my interactions were with Christians, and to a person they all told me that the prime reason for the Christian exodus from their ancient homeland was the difficulties posed by the Israeli occupation. Indeed, they perceived many of the tensions that existed between Christians and Muslims were stoked by Israelis, who saw the advantages in dividing the Palestinian community.

      Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and was eager to follow its twists. It conveyed the truth that living in the Occupied Territories today, it is hard to know from day to day whom to trust or believe.
    • 5/5
      Rees has created a story with a superb sense of time and place, and he does so by showing the humanity of all sides. The monsters aren't all Palestinian. Or Israeli. The mistakes being made aren't all being made by Palestinians or Israelis. And there are good people on every side. This is a story to experience. A story for the mind and for the emotions.One of the good people is Omar Yussef, who feels that he may be coming to the end of his usefulness. He can't seem to stop being angry at the children in his class who do nothing but spout political clichés, but when he tries to destroy their hate and their blindness, all he seems to do is make himself angrier and the children distrustful of him. The plight of George Saba is a godsend for this man. Yussef has a deep-seated need to fight injustice. For years he's been buffeted by the winds of political and religious unrest, but he is still willing to stand up for what he believes in. The power of Rees's writing is that while the reader is cheering Yussef for his bravery, he is also afraid because of what may happen to this one solitary man.Yussef isn't Mr. Perfect. He may endear himself to us by telling us of the power of his wife's cooking or of what he believes to be the most important thing about teaching. He may enlighten us about the proliferation of murals depicting the Alps inside Bethlehem's homes, but the years have soured him a bit. He's not always right about the people he comes in contact with every day. Readers have to keep an eye on Yussef as they follow his investigation.Omar Yussef is told early on in The Collaborator of Bethlehem that "In Palestine, there's no such thing as a good detective." Yussef still has much to learn, but I think it's safe to say that Palestine now has that badly needed investigator.
    • 2/5
      Not being a mystery reader, I am reviewing this as the literary novel it might have been. This had the bones of a well-written book, but not the flesh and blood. It needed a solid rewrite to upgrade the internal monologue, which read like plot notes for a character study, and to fix the dialogue, which read like internal monologue. This book contained some truly beautiful sentences, but their appearances were so rare as to make the rest of the book even more disappointing. The author clearly has the talent to be great, if he could just work on the editing and rewriting process. I am curious to see whether his later books are an improvement.
    • 4/5
      After my last read I was looking for something light,  and went to my usual, a mystery.  Well, light it wasn't, but a good transition perhaps.  I just stumbled across this book and grabbed it.  [[Matt Rees]] writes out of his experience as a journalist covering the mid-East for over a decade for Time,  Newsweek, and The Scotsman.  He was born in Wales which I thought brought a unique perspective to his story.This book has all of the standard ingredients of a good murder mystery, but with some added twists.  The location (Bethlehem) includes an occupied Palestinian camp.  The interaction, blame, motives, etc., are complicated by the characters from three groups, Palestinian Christians, Muslims, and the  Israeli occupiers.  I'm American and had to keep stopping and thinking these relationships through and putting the characters in perspective.  I finally realized that I was trying to fit the story into my American framework rather than just hearing what the characters were actually experiencing themselves.  That was a challenge, and well worth the effort.  The main character was very helpful in that because of his personal refusal to hold people in stereotype. He is definitely NOT a black and white thinker but sees many shades of grays and many possibilities.  The author has clearly developed an excellent grasp of the complicated relationships between groups living in the mid-East as well as old tribal histories and forms of government.  I learned a lot in reading it and will be reading the other three in this series.  Highly recommended, with a potential to help the reader understand the mid-East a little more, and perhaps even the reader's own ambiguity in her own relationships.
    • 4/5
      Although the setting of this book may be unfamiliar it’s still got most of the elements of a traditional whodunit. There’s a murder, then another one, an amateur detective attempting to clear a friend’s name, a plethora of corrupt or incompetent officials and a gang of thugs (masquerading as freedom fighters but showing remarkable similarities to gangs of thugs the world over). That said though it isn’t the best example of its genre you could find. There aren’t the plot twists, red-herrings and false suspects that usually accompany this kind of story and, regardless of how much I’d like to have a long chat over coffee with him, Omar Yussef isn’t the most successful fictional amateur detective I’ve encountered.

      Aside from Yussef, who is a complex character with a myriad of flaws alongside the moral strength and necessary stubbornness that makes him stand up to the bullies around him while others cower, the people are fairly one-dimensional and somewhat stereotypical. But the other main character of this story isn’t a person: it’s the place. Rees’ picture of Palestinian Bethlehem is breathtaking in its depth and the way it humanises something I’ve only seen in news headlines. It feels as if this book has shown me a genuine slice of the lives that are lived despite, or because of, those headlines.

      And what lives! They’re full of oppression, poverty, evil, hatred and endless longing for things that are long gone or can never be. There are brief glimmers of hope such as the fact that Yussef and a couple of others are not completely broken and the warm, loving families in abundance but overall the people lurch from one depressing, incident to the next. When Yussef looks at the judge during a farcical trial and observes “…a man’s morality takes a big gulp of air before plunging beneath the surface of the sea of iniquity on which Bethlehem wallows” I felt particularly helpless at the thought of the real-world people on whose lives these fictional ones are based.

      Which probably explains why I struggled to finish this book, It required the kind of grim determination I usually reserve for unpleasant but necessary tasks like housework and going to management meetings. In the end I shut myself in a room and finished it: tears streaming down my face all the while as the bodies mounted up, the futility of Yuseff’s activities became more apparent and I realised just how many people in the world have no expectation of happiness or justice or the myriad of other basic things I take for granted.

    • 3/5
      I first heard of this book from an NPR series on writers who set mysteries in particular cities. I liked the idea of a mystery series set on the West Bank. The author is a Welshman who’s been a journalist in the Middle East. This is the first novel in what’s meant to be a series.I both liked and didn’t like this one. It was a slow read and it was often hard to tell where the story was going. On the other hand, the outcome was not in the least predictable and the author’s version of life in the Palestinian territories of Israel was disturbing—dismal and morally twisted—but very interesting.The main character is Omar Yussef, an aging history teacher at a UN refugee camp. He comes from a large clan that was driven from their lands but has wisely concluded that there’s not much point in living in the past. Omar Yussef has Christian and Muslim friends—he’s a Muslim himself but not a very strict one—and encourages his children and his students to seek positive ways to build better lives for themselves even while living in the midst of violence and extreme ideology. The Martyrs Brigade is the “enemy” in this novel and the crime that opens it involves a Christian former student of Omar’s who has been arrested as a collaborator who informed the Israeli soldiers how to find (and subsequently kill) a young man active in the resistance. He finds a few clues that give him a sense of where blame really lies and takes them to his friend, the police chief, a former terrorist with a prosthetic “black hand”. The policeman, of course, tell him not to investigate and he, of course, can’t help but continue.