The first line of a great novel tends also to have a lot of punch — to “grab” you. My favorite is “The Sun Also Rises,” which manages to tell you a great deal about one of the main characters, but even more about the narrator: “Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.” Read the rest of this entry »

New Yorkers typically have a “seen it all” attitude to their city. It’s not surprising, given the madhouse that is the Big Apple. But I’ve now officially done something that’ll shock them. In The New York Times Book Review’s crime fiction roundup by Marilyn Stasio, my new novel THE FOURTH ASSASSIN is called “engrossing.” It’s also described as a book that will make New Yorkers see their city in a different way. Here’s the review: Read the rest of this entry »

How the son of a Hamas founder ended up an Israeli agent, as told by the “Green Prince” himself. (I posted this on GlobalPost)
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Parents often lament that their kids don’t follow them into their chosen professions. They ought to think themselves lucky. They could be Sheikh Hassan Youssef, a founder of the Islamic militant group Hamas whose son converted to Christianity and became a key Israeli agent. Read the rest of this entry »

The dead man’s mother raged and cried as she told me how she’d discovered her son’s body, in the cabbage patch outside her home. She’d gone down on her knees, she said, touched his blood and wiped her fingers on her face and called out that God is most great.

As the winter wind came cold off the Judean Desert, I watched her weep and thought: “I have to write a novel about this.” Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great pleasures of life as a writer is being paired with interesting authors when you speak at book fairs. (It’s also an occasional rough ride when you find yourself stuck with a bum who can’t write, but I’m being nice here so I won’t get into any of those rotters.) The most delightful fellow I’ve met in this way is Duncan Campbell with whom I was paired at the book fair in his native Edinburgh two years ago. He happens to be the British crime writer with the best knowledge of the UK’s criminal fraternity — which he covered for three decades for The Guardian, famously managing to be liked by all the old lags he wrote about. His latest novel, “If It Bleeds,” focuses on the nexus of crime and crime journalism. Read the rest of this entry »

Was Israeli intelligence really behind the video showing an Abbas aide soliciting sex? (I posted this on Global Post.)
Fans of the Jamaican reggae singer Shaggy will already be familiar with the strategy of a Palestinian official caught with his pants down — actually, with his pants entirely off — in a sex scandal this week. Read the rest of this entry »

You’d think there was something wrong with spying.

People pay good money to watch Daniel Craig dispose of villains in the bloodiest fashion. They nod in approval when M pushes 007’s perfect false passport across the desk. Yet everyone’s peeved about what in all likelihood is a Mossad hit against a Hamas operative in his Dubai hotel room on January 20.

Oh, that’s right, because the Hamas guy – meanies though Hamas might be – was a real human being who’s now dead, after all.

No, wait, that isn’t it. Read the rest of this entry »

Some authors exude the pleasure of reading and writing (and, take my word for it, when you meet them, you’d be surprised how many simply don’t.) J. Sydney Jones is such a man, with a range of writing experience in different genres that’s deeply impressive and carries with it an obvious love of his craft. His Viennese Mystery series is a fascinating way to delve into one of Europe’s loveliest, most cultured cities – and damned entertaining, too. He’s also the man behind a great new blog Scene of the Crime, which focuses on the role of place in crime fiction – check out Syd’s interview with Berlin noirmeister Philip Kerr. Here Syd discusses his career and his ideas about writing. Read the rest of this entry »

On the My Book, The Movie blog, I was asked to write about who I’d choose to play Omar Yussef in the movies. Here’s what I wrote:

I didn’t need to think of an actor. Not until I’d finished my book. Then the thinking really started.

The Palestinian detective hero of my books, Omar Yussef, is based on a real Palestinian friend of mine who lives in the Dehaisha Refugee Camp on the edge of Bethlehem in the West Bank. I had no problem visualizing him when I wrote about Omar, because I saw him most days. We spent a lot of time together and, with a gentleman as frequently cantankerous as my real-life chum, believe me, I got the full tour. Read the rest of this entry »

My new crime novel THE FOURTH ASSASSIN is one of five “This Week’s Hot Reads” on Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast, which also happens to be the hot read of the web these days. The Beast writes of the book and its setting in the Brooklyn Palestinian community: “Rees paints a meticulous portrait of the post-9/11 community of Little Palestine and the tension of cultures trying to co-exist.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times Book Review highlights the paperback release of my previous novel THE SAMARITAN’S SECRET in its Paperback Row column, calling the book “provocative and humane.” Seems The Times’d rather print a photo of me than one of Jimmy Carter, too. Well, the old boy had his time in the sun.