Mysteries offer clues

I read fiction to glimpse truths

I’m going to Israel in the fall, as part of my sabbatical leave from the church I serve. I will travel with a group from my denomination to learn about the daily lives of people on different sides of the many barriers: political, physical, cultural, religious, and ideological.

I’ve been doing my prep reading and listening, delving into the materials sent by the group organizers, to provide needed background and deeper knowledge.

I will also “learn” in the way I often do. One of the group organizers knows that I read and write mysteries, and recommended the work of Batya Gur, who died in 2005.

Her New York Times obituary described her as the “writer and critic almost single-handedly responsible for making the detective novel a flourishing genre in Israeli letters.”

I’m reading Bethlehem Road, her last mystery published before her death, and the 5th in a series featuring Moroccan-born police detective Michael Ohayon, who functions as something of a permanent outsider in Israel. That’s a great stance for your protagonist, especially if your aim as an author is to offer critique, direct or indirect, of the culture they inhabit.

The denomination I serve is on the “liberal-progressive” end of the politico-religious spectrum, and has a particular concern for the situation of Palestinian people, for inter-faith dialogue, and for reaching across those many barriers I mentioned earlier.

I don’t know Batya Gur’s politics. I look forward to learning more about her. I did notice in the first two chapters that her protagonist, Detective Michael Ohayon intervenes when he learns a bystander at the scene of murder is detained and roughly interrogated, and treated much more harshly than others, because they are Palestinian.

The bystander was on site doing renovations to an apartment building in which a corpse has been discovered.

A young policeman with freckles and red cheeks stood over the contractor, who was sitting with his face buried in his hands.

“What happened?” he asked the policeman, who shrugged.

“Routine,” he answered. “Nothing.”

Michael repeated the question and this time he looked at the contractor, who had taken his hands away from his face and directed an exhausted look at his documents, which were spread out on the table.

“I don’t know what they want,” said Imad. “I gave them my ID card, I gave them my license. I gave them my business permit—no good. Everything is no good.”

“Get out of here,” said Michael to the ruddy policeman, who was looking at him with astonishment, anger and fear. “Get out, get out!” he roared. “And I don’t want to see you here ever again. This is the end of you here, the end! What’s your name?”

“Sergeant Yaron Levy, sir,” answered the policeman in a parched voice. “Chief Superintendent Balilty told me—”

“Get out,” said Michael in exasperation, and waited for him to leave. “Filth,” he spat before the door was completely shut.

(Gur, Batya. Bethlehem Road Murder (Michael Ohayon Series) (p. 35). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. )

A little earlier in the story, Batya Gur deftly used a few lines of dialogue to provide an insight about the life experience of the police officers responsible for the harsh treatment of the contractor.

“I need all your phone numbers, and also his,” said Balilty, gesturing toward the contractor with his eyebrows.

“Was anyone here planning to go abroad for the holidays?”

“No one here is going anywhere,” declared Ada Efrati. “These aren’t times for trips abroad.”

“Are you trying to say that everyone has stopped living because of the new intifada?”

Balilty gave a challenging look to the contractor. “If that’s the case then we can close down the shop, if we live by the situation, isn’t that right? Are you from Beit Jalla?” He turned to the contractor.

“Beit Jalla,” he affirmed.

“I live in Gilo. Maybe it was from your house that they sniped at our neighborhood. Huh?”

“Leave that to the army and the border police,” Ada Efrati said, and laid her fingers on the contractor’s arm, as if trying to protect him.

“Those leftists,” snorted Balilty as they went out.

“They spit on them, they get wet and they say it’s raining.”

(Gur, Batya. Bethlehem Road Murder (Michael Ohayon Series) (p. 29). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. )