As a voracious reader of mysteries that have a contemporary political bent I always look forward to title suggestions from others. Last week a friend introduced me to Matt Benyon Rees and his protagonist, Omar Yussef. After reading THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM the first of four “Yussef” books, I am sold. Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and others of their ilk have nothing on Mr. Rees who has created an evocative character that allows the reader to enter the byzantine politics of the Palestinian movement and its war against Israeli occupation by employing a newly created detective investigating his first crime. In reality, Yussef is a school teacher who is being forced to retire at the age of fifty-six and due to events he is forced, as a matter of honor to try and assist a former student who is falsely accused and arrested for collaborating with the Israelis. The story follows Yussef’s journey to free his protégé and the murderous events that ensue.
Mr. Rees is a superb writer who possesses a strong knowledge of Arab and Muslim traditions which he weaves throughout the narrative. The accuracy of the background political and social mores and institutions provides the reader their own education to try and understand why peace has been so difficult to achieve between Palestinians and Israelis since 1948. The author covers the gamut of issues that confront Israel and the Palestinians today; suicide bombings, corrupt leadership, the “iron fist” of Israeli occupation, and the effects of these policies on the Palestinian people. I recommend this book very highly and I look forward to reading the next one in the series, A GRAVE IN GAZA.

“What do you want? The murder of journalists, the beating of protesters, corruption at the top, the rape of natural resources by a circle of cronies, a fraudulent democracy, the erection of palaces, a hollow military.  If you had been a source, the mention of any of this could earn you or someone close to you a bullet in the head.  It’s all here in single-spaced articles.” (237)  What follows is the culmination of Martin Cruz Smith’s eighth installment of his Arkady Renko series, TATIANA, a story that encapsulates the rot that exists in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  Arkady Renko is an investigator attached to the prosecutors office in Moscow who has survived the old Soviet Union and and finds himself in the “New Russia” under very similar circumstances.  In his other adventures found in Smith’s earlier books, GORKY PARK, STALIN’S GHOST, POLAR STAR among others we meet a stubborn man who believes in the truth, in a society that does not.  According to Smith during an interview on  NPR’s Diane Rhems program last Monday, the character of Tatiana Petrovna is modeled after a Russian journalist who was murdered because her writing exposed the corruption that dominates the oligarchy that now controls Russia.  That journalist was “Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist who was a strident critic of the Kremlin, who was murdered in 2006…Amid international clamor for answers regarding her death, Mr. Putin…noted caustically that ‘the level of her influence on political life in Russia was utterly insignificant.’…Ms. Politkovskaya’s editor at Novaya Gazeta, Dimitri Muratov, has maintained from the beginning that she was killed because her investigations were threatening the financial interests of figures within Russia.” (New York Times, June 26, 2009).

The storyline in TATIANA reads as if it were another contemporary plot that was unfolding in Russia, this one centering on oligarchs or gangsters who hoped to reap millions of rubles involving a Chinese shipyard repair of a Russian submarine.  Arkady Renko’s investigation includes; the Russian Defense Ministry, various Russian billionaires, details of high end cycling, and a number of unsavory characters that are based on Smith’s extensive research in Russia.  The book begins with the murder of Tatiana and evolves from there.   The usual twists and turns that one comes to expect from Smith permeate the plot carrying Renko from Moscow to Kaliningrad as he investigates the murder of Tatiana who supposedly jumped from  her apartment and committed suicide.  Renko learns that when she jumped that she screamed, something people who are taking there own lives do not usually do.  With his interest peaked Renko is off and the reader is now engaged in another thriller that will keep them enthralled through the final page.  I really do not want to give any more details because it will lessen the reading experience, but I guarantee if you enjoy international mysteries and want to gain insight into Putin’S Russia this will be a good read.

After completing the book I thought of the upcoming winter olympics in Sochi that had an initial budget of $12.5 billion that has now ballooned to over $50 billion.  When Renko finally traps the perpetrators of the swindle which is the core of the novel, Ape, the nickname for one of the characters, responds to Renko’s concerns about having a Russian submarine refitted in China and the overall cost of $2billion, “Yes. It’s called outsourcing…Business costs.  Totally normal.  Administration of a task of this magnitude is often fifty percent of a budget.” (275)  I guess that Sochi overruns are somewhat larger than expected, even by Russian standards

Recently I was in a bookstore in Stockholm and when I inquired about Swedish mystery writers other than Henning Mankell. The owner of the store suggested I purchase BETWEEN SUMMER’S LONGING AND WINTER’S END by Leif G.W. Persson. I did just that and finished reading the book which I found interesting in terms of plot development but not as satisfactory as I would have hoped. The story revolves around a plot to kill the Swedish Prime Minister who in real life in 1986 was assassinated after attending a film in Stockholm. The Prime Minister who was assassinated was Olof Palme and to this day the assassin remains at large. Persson explores the workings of the Swedish justice system leading up to and after the supposed suicide death of John P. Krassner, an American who was writing a book that linked the fictional Prime Minister to the CIA and KGB following World War II. Thus the mystery begins presenting many strands that are woven throughout the narrative carrying the reader through the Post War period, the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Persson’s plot organization is somewhat convoluted as it presents a confusing chronology and a story line that jumps back and forth. The characters are developed fully but I got the feeling that when the author switched characters he did not identify the new person he was introducing clearly. Since the narrative lends itself to an actual assassination the book is worth reading, despite the fact that it does not flow freely at all times. What emerges from the story is Persson’s theory of who killed Olof Palme in 1986. Not being fully versed in Swedish politics his theory sounds very plausible. In the end I am glad that I have read this work of fiction because it has spurred my interest in Swedish foreign and domestic policy, but I do not think the book lived up to my expectations.