The Saladin Murders Main Edition

In its vivid portrayal of the violence and degradation of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, Matt Rees’s second book, “The Saladin Murders”, is outstanding. His hero, Omar Yussef, a Bethlehem schoolteacher, is a recovering alcoholic in his fifties, physically frail but possessed of a steely moral core. At the start of the book he is sent to Gaza on an apparently straightforward school inspection. When a fellow teacher is arrested as a CIA spy by the sinister Palestinian security forces, Yussef ignores advice to leave. He is quickly drawn into a deadly game where disputes are settled by gun battles and car bombs. Brutal, corrupt warlords torture and murder at will, while the khamsin, the hot, dusty desert wind, blows hard, turning the sky yellow and filling the air with choking sand. The Israelis barely feature in this dark, gripping and often moving book. Gaza, it seems, is a hell in large part of the Palestinians’ own making. — The Economist 3/4/2008

Matt Rees’s endearing protagonist, Omar Yussef, is not a detective, but a seeker of truth and justice, both of which seem impossible to find in The Saladin Murders. Omar has left his home in Bethlehem, where he is principal of a UN school, to accompany a Swedish UN official on an inspection of the organisation’s schools in Gaza. Within hours of their arrival he discovers how dangerous the place is. One of their teachers has been arrested, after accusing the university of selling degrees to members of the Preventive Security Force, who use them to get promotion. Warring factions, each led by notoriously corrupt and brutal men, commit horrific crimes in their battle for power, and little Omar, overcome at times by rage and desperation, finds himself fighting to save not only the imprisoned teacher but his own life. Rees has created a stunning sense of place and memorable characters for his impassioned story. — Sunday Telegraph 24/2/2008