CrocAttack! [Paperback]

`CrocAttack!' by Assaf Gavron is a book that would have come to my attention without any help as it is set in Israel, particularly Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, which I fell in love with when I went there last year. However this would probably not be the ideal holiday read to take on a trip there or before you go as it looks at the terrorism seen in Israel. I should make clear though that this book is set almost a decade ago when the Israeli/Palestine tensions and conflicts were at their most destructive.

Eitan Enoch is your average business man who is in a slightly turbulent relationship (his girlfriend Duchi is an interesting character) and in a steady average job being paid to save and find time for companies like the UK's 118 118. On a normal routine bus ride to work in Tel Aviv one morning a fellow passenger begins to fret over a dark skinned man with a suit bag and believes he is a terrorist. Eitan, or `Croc' to his friends, simply laughs it off. When the bus then explodes not long after he has dismounted and gotten the lift up to work Croc can't believe what has happened. He also can't believe it when he is involved in another set of terrorist attacks and neither can the public soon elevating him into being a national figure something the terrorists themselves want stopped.

If that wasn't enough of a story line Gavron gives us another in alternating chapters which looks at the situation from a completely different angle, the mindset, feelings and driving forces of a terrorist. An initially unnamed young man lies in a coma unable to speak or communicate with the outside world, though he can understand what is going on around him, looking back at his life and how he came to be a suicide bomber and how his life came to that hospital bed at that time. Gavron goes through his emotions and feelings in a way that doesn't make you sympathise with him at all but helps you to sort of understand him. It's a place many readers won't wish to go and indeed some may be horrified at the idea of (hence why this book has caused some controversy here and there) but if you are up to the challenge this is well worth it.

I realise I might have made it sound like this book is hard work or a struggle and it isn't. The subject matter is dark and sometimes quite difficult but you feel you are in safe hands with Gavron, and despite some descriptions of the carnage a bomber leaves behind, nothing ever gets too graphic or goes too far. Basically it's not a book that's shocking for the sake of it. Nor is it a book that should be written off as simply `a darkly comic tale of terrorism' as though in some places its funny its also intelligent, thought provoking and most importantly well written.

From the opening scene we take the viewpoint of Croc as he boards a Little No5 bus. Then an elderly lady comments that one of the passengers looks suspicious. Croc dismisses it only to find out later that the suspicious looking character was carrying a bomb.

Next chapter we are taking the alternate viewpoint from a suicide bomber named Fahmi. He's in a coma but aware of his surroundings and reflecting on his life.

An interesting start for what I hoped would be a good read. This novel looks at the situation from both sides but never really seemed to go anywhere with it and the characters seemed rather flat. The inital chapters were interesting but I quickly lost interest. It was a struggle to finish and by the end I wasn't really taking much of the story in. Overall, dull and unispired. Pity.

A dark but humourous read where we have two characters on opposite sides. The auther catches the tone of the environment smattered with a survivor of terrorist attacks and those who are plotting attacks.
The story switches nicely from aspects of the two main characters and you can see where it is going but yet the book keeps you hooked as you want to see how events play out.