Book Review: Exile

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Exile     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Richard North Patterson
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Legal Setting   Terrorists
Henry Holt, Jan 2007, $26.00

With a shot at his making Congress, San Francisco attorney David Wolfe should say no; all his advisors and his fiancée Carole Shorr tell him that taking the case is political suicide. Still David cannot refuse his former lover, Palestinian Hana Arif, when she asks him to defend her against conspiracy charges that she was a key player in the assassination of peace seeking Israeli Prime Minister Amos Ben-Aron. David thinks back to when they attended Harvard Law School together thirteen years ago; he the American-Jew and her the Palestinian shared a torrid love affair though she was engaged to Palestinian activist Saeb Khalid.

Suicide bomber Ibrahim Jefar has given testimony that incriminates Hana in the bombing making the case that much more difficult to gain an acquittal and the media already has hung her. Still David diligently works on Hana’s defense in spite of his participation threatening his engagement especially since her father is a firm Zionist having survived the Holocaust and destroying his Congressional aspirations.

The cast is solid as just about every potential position on the Israeli-Palestine conflict seems reasonably represented by full blooded intelligent individuals even without events like the recent Gaza and Hezbollah wars mentioned. The trial is terrific as the audience further obtains varying viewpoints. However, when David races to the Middle East to prove a different conspiracy theory than that of the prosecution, the story line loses some of its lucidity and strength as it turns into a cartoonish thriller. Still this is a strong tale that focuses justly on one of the most complex crisis still boiling as if it is 1948 instead of the twenty first century.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner