The Campaign for the American Reader blog empire’s flagship is the Page 69 Test. The premise is this: open any book to page 69; if it grabs you, that’s a better indication of whether you’ll enjoy the book than simply reading the opening page. Try it on a book you like (and, better still, one you don’t), it’s quite reliable. Campaign blogger Marshal Zeringue asked me to submit my new Palestinian crime novel, THE FOURTH ASSASSIN, to the Page 69 Test. Here’s his introduction followed by what I wrote for him about page 69 of my new book: Read the rest of this entry »

Crime fiction blog The Rap Sheet runs a weekly feature asking authors to write about a “forgotten” book that merits new attention. This last week the blog’s editor asked me to suggest a book. I wrote about Georges Simenon’s “The Saint-Fiacre Affair” (aka “Maigret Goes Home”). It’s a very early Maigret novel (1932) and not what you’d expect, if you’re accustomed to the later, somewhat more cosy novels in the Belgian writer’s series. It’s a tough, atmospheric book about returning to the place of one’s birth which — for me — has a personal resonance. Read on for my little essay about this great book — and while you’re at it, let me know what forgotten novel you’d have written about. Read the rest of this entry »

On the “Writers Read” blog, which is run by the indefatigable Marshal Zeringue, the latest post features my most recent reading. It’s not what you might think — in other words, it isn’t detective fiction (well, there’s one such book, sort of…) and it’s not full of books about the Middle East. Have a look at the historical fiction, travel writing, and investigative nonfiction recently on my nightstand (that’s just a turn of phrase — I don’t have a nightstand and I don’t read in bed.) Read on for the rest of my post. Read the rest of this entry »

Crime writer J. Sydney Jones has a new blog called Scene of the Crime. He aims to interview writers about the impact on their writing of the location and sense of place in their novels — usually from far-flung countries. This week he features me on my Palestinian crime novels. Read on, for the full interview. Read the rest of this entry »

Often a novelist can humanize foreign affairs in ways a journalist can’t.
To mark publication today of my new Palestinian crime novel The Fourth Assassin, I posted this for my regular column on GlobalPost.

Though we do so at our peril, overseas events are easy to ignore. We flip past the foreign pages of the newspaper. We might not even obtain a passport or travel further than Florida for vacation.

But if we ignore the world beyond our borders, one day that world will come to remind us that it’s there. That’s what happened on 9/11 and in the terror attacks in Madrid and London.

Readers of GlobalPost by definition understand this — it’s why they’ve come to a site which now covers the globe as almost no other U.S. news organization does. Many readers, however, don’t know what important world news they’re missing.

That’s why I decided to bring my fictional Palestinian detective Omar Yussef to the U.S. in my new novel, which is set in Brooklyn. Read the rest of this entry »

Alleged abuse of staff by Netanyahu’s third wife opens him up to political attack. Billions of dollars in aid, bulging frequent-flier accounts for U.S. diplomats, and several thousand dead ought to be proof enough that the Middle East peace process has churned through the last decade and a half without getting anywhere.

But if you need more evidence, here it is: The Israeli Prime Minister’s wife is still allegedly screaming at her housekeeper. Read the rest of this entry »

Award-winning crime writer Matt Beynon Rees reads from THE FOURTH ASSASSIN, his new novel, Feb. 2 in New York.

The fourth installment in Matt’s Crime Writers Association Dagger-winning series about Palestinian sleuth Omar Yussef is published Feb. 1. In New York for a UN conference, Omar uncovers an assassination plot. The suspect: his own son. Omar’s most personal investigation so far.

Matt will read from the book Feb. 2 at 7 p.m.
Location: Partners & Crime bookstore, 44 Greenwich Avenue (note, the bookstore is on Greenwich Avenue, not Greenwich Street), in Greenwich Village, NYC

Matt Beynon Rees is the award-winning author of the Omar Yussef series. A prize-winning journalist, he has reported for 14 years from the Middle East for Time, Newsweek and British newspapers. His novels have been translated into 23 languages. He lives in Jerusalem.

Read more about THE FOURTH ASSASSIN. Watch a video about the book. Order it from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk. For publicity contact Grace McQuade (212) 446-5101 gmcquade@goldbergmcduffie.com

JERUSALEM, Israel — The American humorist Caskie Stinnett once wrote that “a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.” In other words, someone who doesn’t make his meaning so clear that one is both afraid of the trip to hell and angry about being sent there. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone comes back to Jerusalem. I don’t know why, I really don’t.

It’s too hot. The people can be offhandedly mean, and they drive as though they want to kill you. It isn’t a very pretty place once you look close. Oh and, yes, sometimes it gets violent. With shocking self-obsession, it thinks the eyes of the world are turned admiringly upon it all the time. Read the rest of this entry »

In the current Library Journal, my new Palestinian crime novel, THE FOURTH ASSASSIN (out Feb. 1) gets a very good review that highlights the themes and implications beyond the way detective Omar Yussef resolves the mystery. For those who didn’t yet get a copy of the magazine in the mail (Spoiler alert: Librarian of the Year is Craig Buthod of Louisville, Kentucky) here’s the review: “In New York City for a UN conference, Omar Yussef goes to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, home to a large Palestinian community, to visit his son and finds a beheaded body in his son’s apartment. With no alibi, his son is arrested, and Omar finds that the streets of New York are as treacherous and dangerous as those of Bethlehem. VERDICT Journalist Rees’s fourth Omar Yussef outing (after The Samaritan’s Secret) exposes the political struggle among various Palestinian factions and demonstrates why it is so difficult to find a solution in the troubled region. His sleuth might miss the ancient streets of Bethlehem, but the hatred and tension of the Middle East follow the Palestinian wherever he goes.”