The title of this Jerusalem-set mystery, the third in the series featuring police detective Avram Cohen, could refer to the Israeli state itself. One does not normally turn to crime novels to find political insights on the Mideast crisis, but Robert Rosenberg is an unusually erudite and reflective mystery novelist. In this installment, Cohen sets off through the demimonde of Tel Aviv in search of a tycoon's wayward grandson. Eventually the search leads to the West Bank and to the rage of religious zealots, Jewish and Muslim alike. Rosenberg knows his territory, and seething Israel comes marvelously to life through his sleuth's eyes.


From Publishers Weekly
Setting his tale after Baruch Goldstein's massacre of praying Muslims in Hebron in 1994 but before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin the following year, Rosenberg puts Avram Cohen (The Cutting Room), reluctantly retired from the Jerusalem Police, in the middle of Israel's tumultuous politics. Disputes between Palestinians and Israelis and between secular and religious Jews color a murder case. Raphael Levi-Tsur, a London-based banker whose assets and influence are international, hires Cohen to find his missing grandson, Simon, who is about to reach his majority. With digging, Cohen learns that a religious man was looking for the unreligious Simon at his apartment, and he even finds the woman Simon was with the night he vanished near the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. But he learns all this too late to save Simon, whose body is found in the West Bank wilderness, not far from Hebron. Both the police brass and the boy's family believe?or say they believe?that Simon was killed by Hamas, or some enraged Palestinian extremist. Cohen isn't so sure. He suspects that a rich, undisciplined and possibly unbalanced young man like Simon could have been an object of interest to some of Israel's Jewish extremists. Nor can he overlook the fact that Simon was interested in some priceless museum pieces stolen long ago?embarrassingly, on Cohen's beat when he was a young policeman in Tel Aviv. Rosenberg's mystery derives its considerable appeal less from its puzzle?which is adequate?than from simply putting an intelligent, observant man in the middle of a complex, volatile society and giving him something to be curious about. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
Having created a highly intelligent detective to handle the brainwork in this series, Mr. Rosenberg does not waste that shrewd and subtle mind.


From Booklist
Former Jerusalem police commander Avram Cohen is trying with limited success to enjoy the fortune he inherited from a dead friend (The Cutting Room, 1993) and still brooding about his forced retirement. It was Cohen's belief in the controversial Jerusalem syndrome that first put him in trouble with his superiors, and now it's the syndrome that draws him back to detecting. A condition affecting neurotics who visit Jerusalem and confuse their identities with those of biblical characters or believe they receive messages from God, the syndrome, Cohen contends, is often behind acts of terrorism such as the Hebron massacre. It may also have something to do with the disappearance of young Simon Levi-Tsur, scion of a banking empire. Cohen's unofficial investigation of the disappearance offers Rosenberg the opportunity to explore both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in rich detail, from extremist politics to seedy night life. Wracked by true believers of every stripe, Israel has become an ideal setting for crime fiction, and Cohen, the detective perpetually caught in the crossfire, makes a wonderfully resonant hero. Bill Ott


From Kirkus Reviews
However unhappy his retirement from the Jerusalem police has been, former Deputy Commander Avram Cohen (The Cutting Room, 1993, etc.) doesn't intend to get dragged back into an investigation just because an influential somebody cracks a whip. So when powerful banking head Raphael Levi-Tsur's secretary phones asking Cohen to look into the disappearance of Levi-Tsur's grandson Simon, Cohen hangs up, and when the great man himself comes calling with the secretary in tow, Cohen turns his back on them. Not interested. It's only three days later, when police minister David Nahmani suavely offers to swap preferment for an unfairly exiled prot‚g‚ of Cohen's for his taking charge of the case, that Cohen finally agrees. And by then it's too late, since hedonistic Simon has been killed in the no-man's-land of the suburban desert after disappearing from a nocturnal pilgrimage with an obliging Tel Aviv prostitute to the Western Wall. The motif of tough worldliness crossed with incongruous but equally tough religiosity pursues Cohen as, haunted by remorse for his delay, he tracks errant Simon's involvement with a born-again Orthodox burglar, a missing treasure in gold, and a museum theft four years ago that netted an irreplaceable haul--the golden crowns of King Herod. Written in the shadow of the Hebron massacre, Rosenberg's chilling vision of a dozen warring national and religious parties--each serenely convinced of its absolute justification- -has been confirmed rather than dated by the Rabin assassination. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Uneasy with his newly inherited wealth, cranky in unwanted retirement , former Jerusalem Police CID Chief Avram Cohen wants to be left alone to suffer. The new minister of police has other plans. Using emotional blackmail, he coerces Cohen into leading a search for the missing heir to the House of Levi-Tsur banking house. The psychologically disturbed Simon had some peculiar haunts that take the veteran detective Cohen into Tel Aviv’s decadent nightlife, then out into Jewish settlements on the West Bank, into the Judean desert, and back to the dangerous underworld of Jewish extremists in Jerusalem. Cohen is tracking the missing man, but what he’s really hunting is confirming evidence that the Jerusalem Syndrome, a condition he believes often lies behind acts of terrorism, is at work. It is Cohen’s belief that neurotics who visit Jerusalem and confuse their identities with those of biblical characters or believe they receive messages from God cause havoc—and got him into trouble with his own superiors. While his longtime lover Ahuva, a judge, tries to calm him, Cohen is brought face to face not only with the mystery of Simon Levi-Tsur and his powerful family, but with his own past and present failures.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Unhappily retired, uneasy with newly inherited wealth, the former Jerusalem CID chief wants nothing more than to be left alone. But the system won't let him be. Emotionally blackmailed by the new minister of police, Cohen reluctantly undertakes a search for Simon Levi-Tsur, the psychologically disturbed heir to the House of Levi-Tsur banking family. The search at first seems routine, an easy if tedious job for any veteran detective. But the tracks lead from Tel Aviv's decadent night life to the most extreme of the Jewish settlements of the West Bank, past the Western Wall of Solomon's Temple and into the Judean desert. From drug dealers to semiprofessional call girls, from mystics to political thugs, the clues take Cohen from the secular underworld of Tel Aviv into the no less secret - and dangerous - underworld of the Jewish extremists in Jerusalem. On the way, he is brought face to face with his own failures, both present and past, and in the process he reveals dangerous secrets that threaten not only the powerful banking family but also the newborn peace process between Israel and the Arab world.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Setting his tale after Baruch Goldstein's massacre of praying Muslims in Hebron in 1994 but before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin the following year, Rosenberg puts Avram Cohen (The Cutting Room), reluctantly retired from the Jerusalem Police, in the middle of Israel's tumultuous politics. Disputes between Palestinians and Israelis and between secular and religious Jews color a murder case. Raphael Levi-Tsur, a London-based banker whose assets and influence are international, hires Cohen to find his missing grandson, Simon, who is about to reach his majority. With digging, Cohen learns that a religious man was looking for the unreligious Simon at his apartment, and he even finds the woman Simon was with the night he vanished near the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. But he learns all this too late to save Simon, whose body is found in the West Bank wilderness, not far from Hebron. Both the police brass and the boy's family believeor say they believethat Simon was killed by Hamas, or some enraged Palestinian extremist. Cohen isn't so sure. He suspects that a rich, undisciplined and possibly unbalanced young man like Simon could have been an object of interest to some of Israel's Jewish extremists. Nor can he overlook the fact that Simon was interested in some priceless museum pieces stolen long agoembarrassingly, on Cohen's beat when he was a young policeman in Tel Aviv. Rosenberg's mystery derives its considerable appeal less from its puzzlewhich is adequatethan from simply putting an intelligent, observant man in the middle of a complex, volatile society and giving him something to be curious about. (Oct.)

Kirkus Reviews

However unhappy his retirement from the Jerusalem police has been, former Deputy Commander Avram Cohen (The Cutting Room, 1993, etc.) doesn't intend to get dragged back into an investigation just because an influential somebody cracks a whip. So when powerful banking head Raphael Levi-Tsur's secretary phones asking Cohen to look into the disappearance of Levi-Tsur's grandson Simon, Cohen hangs up, and when the great man himself comes calling with the secretary in tow, Cohen turns his back on them. Not interested. It's only three days later, when police minister David Nahmani suavely offers to swap preferment for an unfairly exiled protégé of Cohen's for his taking charge of the case, that Cohen finally agrees. And by then it's too late, since hedonistic Simon has been killed in the no-man's-land of the suburban desert after disappearing from a nocturnal pilgrimage with an obliging Tel Aviv prostitute to the Western Wall. The motif of tough worldliness crossed with incongruous but equally tough religiosity pursues Cohen as, haunted by remorse for his delay, he tracks errant Simon's involvement with a born-again Orthodox burglar, a missing treasure in gold, and a museum theft four years ago that netted an irreplaceable haul—the golden crowns of King Herod.

Written in the shadow of the Hebron massacre, Rosenberg's chilling vision of a dozen warring national and religious parties—each serenely convinced of its absolute justification—has been confirmed rather than dated by the Rabin assassination.