Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner
An Accidental Murder
Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Robert Rosenberg
Class/Genre: Mystery Legal Setting Government Agency Thriller Ethnic
Series: Avram Cohen # 4
Scribner, Jan 1999, $22.00, 288 pp.
Former Israeli CID chief Avram Cohen is an expert on survival. He persevered against Hitler and his concentration camps. He survived the war that established the Jewish State. However, Avram has doubts that he will endure his forced retirement in spite of his wealth and his relationship with Ahuva Meyerson, a judge poised to be placed on the country's Supreme Court. To pass time and learn how to operate a computer, Avram writes his memoirs, which to his surprise are published.
Avram enjoys his privacy and prefers not to reveal his inner self. He quickly realizes that marketing a best seller is not for him. However, he inadvertently draws attention to himself when a woman is found dead in his bathroom and a bomb is detected under his bed. Initially, law enforcement officials think that either a fanatical fundamentalist group or someone one from his previous life wants to eliminates the pragmatic Avram. His nonchalance about the affair changes when his assistant, a person he considered a son, is killed. Avram, who does not mind going outside the law, conducts his own search into his friend's murderer.
Avram Cohen, who has tasted all the evil man can inflict on his fellow men, is one of the most complex figures in a police procedural. The mystery is well written and brilliantly executed. However, it is the anti-hero, who makes this a unique, but winning novel. Through Avram's eyes, the reader sees the political, secular, and religious perspectives that make up the modern state of Israel. They also realize that the hero is totally aware of the pragmatic, and therefore to some people's minds, the stand he has taken on political and social issues. Robert Rosenberg has created a protagonist and a series that is prime reading material.
Harriet Klausner
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner
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