Reviews of An Accidental Murder
From Booklist January 1, 1999
In the latest Avram Cohen mystery, the retired Jerusalem police commander has become a best-selling author. When Cohen reluctantly agrees to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair to promote his autobiography, Twentieth Century Cop, he finds a dead body and a bomb in his hotel room. Was someone trying to kill him? It turns out to be much more complicated than that, as Cohen is drawn into a case involving not only his own past but also the murder of his dear friend and protege, Nissim Levy. Cohen is a marvelously multidimensional character: a concentration camp survivor, a Nazi hunter, and a cop whose distrust of ideology made him hated or feared by vitually all of Jerusalem's warring factions. Rosenberg uses Cohen's past effectively to dramatize the bloody history of modern Jerusalem, and he shows again why this ancient city makes an ideal setting for a special kind of crime fiction. Bill Ott
From Kirkus Reviews , December 15, 1998
Who better to write a best-selling memoir than Avram Cohen, retired chief of Jerusalem's Criminal Investigation Division (House of Guilt, 1996). And what better way to promote the overwhelmed author's new book than a series of events at the Frankfurt Book Fair? The plan would be perfect if only Cohen didn't hate publicizing himself and wasn't determined to let his memoir speak for itself, and if only he didn't return one evening to his Frankfurt hotel to find a bomb under his bed and the chambermaid dead in the bathroom. But all this skullduggery, pursued by the dogged if uninspired Frankfurt police, is just a prologue to an even greater shock back home: the murder of Cohen's former assistant and loyal protg Nissim Levy. The powers who replaced Cohen on the Jerusalem force insist first that Levy's death was an accident, then that it was the work of vengeful gangster Kobi Alper. But Cohen, following the trail of an autographed copy of his memoir, ties the case into Israel's Russian mob and a killer with a memory even longer than Kobi Alper's. The rage and pain behind the crime ring true as ever, but the trappings of Cohen's cluttered fourth case, from his stratospheric success as an unwilling celebrity to Tel Aviv's notorious Exotica Club, don't. Better wait for this gifted author's next installment. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Book Description
"OF ALL HIS MANY REGRETS, IT WAS HIS DECISION TO WRITE HIS MEMORIES THAT AVRAM COHEN NOW REGRETTED THE MOST..."
Thus begins An Accidental Murder, the latest book in Robert Rosenberg's acclaimed Avram Cohen mystery series. In a tale that takes the retired Jerusalem detective from Germany's Frankfurt book fair to the Negev desert, as he searches for a murderer in Germany and ends up in the dark netherworld of the new Russian mafia in Israel, Avram Cohen is revealed as never before -- a man with a complex past that makes his future most uncertain.
Someone wants to kill Cohen -- or so it seems -- possibly because of something he wrote in his memoir about his year as an avenger assassinating Nazis after his long-ago liberation from the Dachau concentration camp. But then his longtime protege Nissim Levy is found murdered on the road to Eilat.
Is this a revenge killing somehow aimed at Cohen, or as Nissim's former assistant believes, could the Russian mafioso be involved?
From private nightclubs where mafia kingpins entertain with vodka-drenched feasts to massage parlors where the women work with cold-blooded professionalism, Cohen's search for Levy's killer becomes a twisted journey into a new side of Israel hardly known to the outsider. On the way, Cohen must look back at his own guilt before he can unveil a killer with a misguided but nonetheless profound motive for murder.
This finely drawn novel is, like all the Cohen novels, a portrait of a deeply complicated man trying hard to be moral in a world where greed rules. Building an atmosphere of personal pain and paranoia up until the very last pages of the book, Rosenberg gives us a tour de force.
Synopsis
When Jerusalem detective Avram Cohen publishes his memoirs, they provoke a journey into his past and illustrate why this complex, thoughtful man "makes a wonderful resonant hero" ("Booklist").
From Amazon, this review of Accidental Murder by Leon Hadar.
A cool crime novel, uncovers the dark side of Israeli psyche
Those readers searching for another of those cliche ridden thrillers
about brave Israeli Mossad agents pursuing bloody Arab terrorists or conniving
Iranian arm smugglers should not read this book or any other mysteries
about Avram Cohen, an Israeli detective whose complex personality and the
moral dilemmas he faces in his work reflect the Real Reality of contemporary
Israel.
It is an Israel that is a colorful social and political mosaic,and has
a dark side that is unfamiliar even to those Americans and Europeans who
observe the politics of the Jewish state on a daily basis: the decadent
lifestyle of Tel-Aviv; religious fanatics and political extermists; Russian
gangsters and serial killers; a society that is moving beyond the idealism and
unity of the early Zionist era, projecting the kind of political and
social polarization that led to the assassination of former Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzchak Rabin.
Rosenberg, a former correspondent for The Jerusalem
Post and Time magazine,who operates an Israeli based webzine is able to
provide us with the flavor and the vibes of this New Israel. He is also a very
talented writer who has created in Avram Cohen an original character who is
becoming more interesting and more intriguing in each new mystery that is
added to the series.
I don't want to ruin the reader's pleasure by revealing
the plot in "An Accidental Murder." What Rosenberg does in his new novel
is to tie the past with the present, and focus on the way history -- including the
Holocaust -- still effects the Israeli psyche.
In any case, if you like intelligent
and literary mysteries, if you enjoy reading John Le Carre, if The Third Man
is one of your favorite films, and if you are interested in the politics of
Israel and the Middle East, you should get to know Avram Cohen.
Leon Hadar
Order Your Copy of Accidental Murder through Amazon Books List Price: $22.00 -- Amazon's Price: $15.40 -- You Save: $6.60 (30%)
An Accidental Murder, due from Scribner in January 1999
Review by Harriet Klausner - November 11, 1998 "...
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 see a man who knows that the past often has a way of creeping into the present.
It will be fascinating to see the protagonist's character become clearer in future books.
Robert Rosenberg is creating a fantastic series starring a richly complex character.
Let's hope he continues to do so for a long time to come.
Reviews of Crimes of the City
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
In a holy city, even saints can be suspects...
It was the time of the intifada, a season of hatred and fear in the city called Jerusalem, the City of Peace... Criminal Investigations Department Commander Avram Cohen is one of the watchmen at its gates, barring them to criminals and the insane. One man, who is either--or both--slips past and in the midst of chaos commits a terrible double murder. Slaughtered are two Russian nuns, mother and daughter, members of the Russian Orthodox convent in Ein Kerem.
The KGB baby-sitter for the Red Russian mission in the Holy Land is embarrassed, the police are embarrassed, the Knesset is embarrassed--even the Prime Minister exerts pressure for a quick solution. Avram Cohen, known for his toughness, feared for his temper, a man who has left belief in God behind in Dachau, tracks the killer through every sector of the city from the Dead Sea to the Temple Mount while zealots plot and politicians make deals.
Combining the police procedural with the fast-paced suspense of a spy thriller, the investigation--based on an actual double murder--reveals the soul of a great detective and the secret worlds of an ancient city.
New York Times Book Review on Crimes of the City:
"A superior thriller, very well written, sensitively and beautifully plotted. In Avram Cohen, Mr. Rosenberg gives us a real person struggling to find a killer, accommodate himself to the realities of politics, and preserve his own integrity... Everybody in the book is convincingly portrayed, including the killer." Selected as a Notable Thriller of the Year 1991
Publisher's Weekly on Crimes of the City
Although the title of this impressive thriller debut is geographically nondescript, its story of religious, political and international tension could only be set in Jerusalem.... Rosenberg, who lives in Tel Aviv is obviously familiar with Jerusalem's geography, and descriptions of the neighborhoods that comprise the Holy City are woven skillfully into the narrative. The writing is fluent and mature, and one gets a clear, if foreboding sense of the religious fanaticism that threatens to disrupt the fragile truce of Jerusalem's daily life.
Chicago Tribune:
"This season's gift is a first novel by an experienced newsman. Robert Rosenberg's Crimes of the City is a lively tour of duty... Avram Cohen, a 50-ish survivor of Dachau, in love with a sexy Jerusalem judge, also loving his cognac and cigarettes a bit too much, is presented by Rosenberg with sardonic humor... The book is exciting, the talk intelligent, the prose crisp. Rosenberg is very good indeed."
Murder Ink: "A stunning novel set in Jerusalem during the Palestinian intifada. Part police procedural, part spy thriller."
Reviews of House of Guilt
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.
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 , August 15, 1996
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.
Synopsis
Avram Cohen, the retired Jerusalem Police Deputy Commander, searches for a missing bank heir, a journey that takes him from Tel Aviv's underworld to the company of Jewish extremists in Jerusalem.
All the Avram Cohen Mysteries at Amazon
Get one or all of the books in the
Avram Cohen Mystery Quartet
"Having created a highly intelligent detective to handle the brainwork in this series, Mr. Rosenberg does not waste that shrewd and subtle mind." -- --New York Times Book Review
Crimes of the City The first book in the Avram Cohen Quartet, in which the veteran Jerusalem detective investigates the murder of two Rusian nuns and uncovers the Jerusalem Syndrome, a mysterious psychosis affecting the susceptible in that holy city.
The New York Times Notable thriller of 1991 Originally published by Simon&Schuster, and Penguin paperback, and translated into German, Dutch, Romanian, and Japanese,
Shown is the Poisoned Pen Press 2nd edition cover More about Crimes of the City, including the first chapter.
The Cutting Room Out of print in both hardcover and paperback (But possibly available in a used edition from
Amazon
the second book in the quartet finds Cohen unhappily retired, on his way to Hollywood to visit his boyhood friend, like Cohen, a Dachau survivor. But when he arrives, he discovers a suicide that is really a murder, and to find the killer, he must delve into his darkest memories of the concentration camp -- and understand the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Download it as an e-book for
free in html
here.
After unzipping it to its own directory, start with the index.htm file. More about The Cutting Room, including the first chaper.
House of Guilt Between the Hebron Massacre and Rabin's assassination, Avram Cohen is emotionally extorted into a hunt for the missing heir to a fortune. Now a wealthy man from an unexpected inheritance, Cohen follows the case from the anarchy of Tel Aviv's night life to the zealotry of the settlements, and on the way is forced to look at his own failures -- and Israel's -- in a new light.
More about House of Guilt, including the first chapter.
An Accidental Murder What appears to be an accident in the desert turns out to be the murder of Cohen's surrogate son, and by ignoring police pressure to stay away from the case, Cohen's investigation leads him to the Russian Mafia's innermost circles in Israel, and to a suprising conclusion about his own place in Israel, and the world. So far, the last of the Cohen books, An Accidental Murder is a profile of a man -- and a country -- trying to be normal in abnormal circumstances.
More about An Accidental Murder, including the first chapter.
PLUS
Secret Soldier: The True Life Story of Israel's Greatest Commando is the autobiography of IDF Col. (ret) Muki Betser, the hero of the Entebbe rescue raid, a pioneering veteran of Israel's air marshall defense forces, the Sayeret Matkal officer thrice assigned the job of getting Yasser Arafat -- yet a proponent of the peace process with the Palestinians -- and a warrior who went into battle knowing how to control his fear. His story is an epic, behind the senes account of Israel's war against terrorism, a dramatic story about life at the tip of the IDF's spear.
More about Secret Soldier, including excerpts, and the author's introduction.
