The third installment in the CWA Dagger-winning series featuring Palestinian schoolteacher-detective Omar Yussef.
The Samaritan community in Palestine is tiny but ancient-only about six hundred people still adhere to this faith, an offshoot of Judaism, and now one of them has been murdered. The crime has even larger implications, though, as the dead man controlled hundreds of millions of dollars of government money. If the World Bank cannot locate it within the next several days, all aid to the Palestinians will be cut off. Visiting the isolated Samaritan community at Nablus in the West Bank, history teacher-turned-sleuth Omar Yussef must solve the murder and find the money for the sake of all Palestine. Praise for the Omar Yussef series
"Offers a vivid portrait of Palestinian life today."
-The Washington Post
"Matt Beynon Rees has taken a complex world of culture clash and suspicion and placed upon it humanity."
-David Baldacci
"Omar Yussef is a splendid creation."
-Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse novels
"Omar's probe of a West Bank ruled by political intrigue, religious hatred, and militia thugs lets ex-TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief Rees make the Mideast conflict personal."
-Entertainment Weekly
"The Collaborator of Bethlehem is the best-and the rarest-sort of mystery: exciting and compelling, but it is also a deeply moving story that will, for many readers, shed much light on the conditions in the Palestinian territories."
-David Liss, author of A Day of Atonement
"Uncovers the gritty, often disturbing human realities of life in Palestinian society . . . [Rees] gives his characters heart as he gives his readers a thrill."
-TIME.com
"An evocative, compassionate tale."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Rees has created a stunning sense of place and memorable characters for his impassioned story."
-The Sunday Telegraph
"[A] vivid portrayal of the violence and degradation of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza . . . Outstanding."
-The Economist
"Matt Rees has given us an incredible tapestry."
-BBC's Front Row
"One of the most beguiling of current sleuths."
-The Sunday Times Matt Rees was born in South Wales. He was previously the Jerusalem bureau chief for TIME magazine. He is the author of three other mysteries in the Omar Yussef series, the historical novel Mozart's Last Aria, and the nonfiction work Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East. After living in the Middle East for twenty years, he recently moved to Luxembourg. Chapter 1
Lime green paint on the domes of the neighborhood mosques punctuated the khaki limestone in the Nablus casbah. Like tarnished copper tacks, they seemed to pin the Ottoman souk and the Mamluk caravanserai to the floor of the valley. Otherwise even the stones might get up and run away from this dirty town, Omar Yussef thought.
The distant siren of an ambulance rumbled in the stomach of the city and Omar Yussef felt the last crispness of dawn burn away in the sun. With his habitually shaky hand, he stroked the meager white hairs covering his baldness and clicked his tongue. These few strands wouldn't save his scalp from sunburn, and he could see that the day would be hot. Sweat itched behind his tidy gray mustache. He scratched his upper lip petulantly.
He turned from the valley and contemplated the sparse spring grass stippling the rocky flank of Mount Jerizim. Let's see who gets burned worse-you or me, he thought. The mountain arced, sullen and taut, to the row of mansions on its ridge, as though tensing its shoulders to endure the heat of the day.
A turquoise police car pulled up. The driver's window lowered and a smoldering cigarette butt spun onto the sidewalk. "Greetings, ustaz," Sami Jaffari said. "Get in."
Omar Yus
