The Honored Dead: A Story of Friendship, Murder, and the Search for Truth in the Arab World [Hardcover]

As you watch the Arab Spring unfold, are you curious about what life is like for the majority of people in the Arab world today? This narrative nonfiction book with a noir mystery mood provides you an entertaining way to learn more. The author's quest to help a Moroccan man of modest means find the truth behind why his best friend was murdered takes you on a tour of Morocco and gives you a lens into Moroccan life and culture that reveals the complexity and color of the Islamic world - ancient traditions of magic juxtaposed with Muslim beliefs, civilian interactions with the police, open-air food markets, ethnic minorities, and more (to say much more would spoil some surprises!). This is a great book for anyone who likes a gripping story that keeps revealing more layers -- and a perfect book for anyone who wants to get a feel for life in the developing nations of the Middle East. An extra bonus is that you really feel like you get to know the author who shares the intriguing story of how his own personal and family history brought him to be a journalist embedded with the Moroccan police in the first place.

In his unaffected tone, Joseph Braude takes his readers inside the world that so often dominates the front page of the newspaper, and shows us what life is like beyond the headlines. While his American status gives him access to shadow the Moroccan police, Braude does not choose to spend his time among the powerful. Instead, he befriends a poor, helpless man whose best friend was mysteriously killed. Moved by his past, Joseph explores his own personal history while assisting his new friend in finding out the truth about the murder. Filled with integrity and honesty, this book was an adventure from start to finish. I highly recommend it!

"The Hon­ored Dead: A Story of Friend­ship, Mur­der, and the Search for Truth in the Arab World" by Joseph Braude is a non­fic­tion book about the author's expe­ri­ence being embed­ded with a Moroc­can secu­rity squad.

Jour­nal­ist Joseph Braude has spent sev­eral month embed­ded in a Moroc­can police precinct in Casablanca. The city of Casablanca has many issues (beside star crossed lovers run­ning away from the Vichy rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Nazis) drug car­tels, al-Qaeda cells as well as crimes which plague any cities its size.

Mr. Braude goes on his own to inves­ti­gate a mur­der of an unem­ployed Mus­lim Berber. While inves­ti­gat­ing the author goes on a wild ride into Moroc­can Mus­lim soci­ety involv­ing cover-ups, duplic­ity and fraud.

"The Hon­ored Dead: A Story of Friend­ship, Mur­der, and the Search for Truth in the Arab World" by Joseph Braude is a smart book which brings the reader into the inner­most Arab soci­ety. Mr. Braud, a jour­nal­ist, got an amaz­ing level of access and cor­po­ra­tion he got from the Moroc­can government.

Mr. Braude writes in lyri­cal prose and engag­ing story. More than sim­ply telling a story, the book also teaches about Mid­dle East pol­i­tics, Morocco's cul­ture, rich Jew­ish her­itage, his­tory, pol­i­tics and, to my great sur­prise, the role magic plays in the society.

While the book might be about solv­ing a mys­tery, it is much more than that. The insight into a for­eign soci­ety where the police not only enforce the law, but also tries to main­tain a pre­cious bal­ance within the soci­ety. This bal­ance could break eas­ily with the sim­ple pre­sump­tion of insult or intent to insult not only a per­son, but a whole society.

One of the more intrigu­ing aspects of the book is the def­i­n­i­tions which the Moroccan's live by. For exam­ple, there are cer­tain lev­els of killing which the police inves­ti­gates. While they are focused on find­ing the killer, that is not the most impor­tant part of the inves­ti­ga­tion - but keep­ing the peace is.

Keep­ing the peace means not to let the cit­i­zens have any rea­son to start reli­gious demon­stra­tions or cause upheaval in the rich com­mu­ni­ties. Because of that, some­times the rea­son for the killing is sim­ply mis­stated and news­pa­pers are not allowed to print any fac­tual details about crimes for fear of ret­ri­bu­tion, not only to the crim­i­nals but also to the witnesses.

That whole aspect of the book really got me think­ing. We value truth above all else, but is it really the best pol­icy?
In the case of the Moroc­can police, cov­er­ing up the truth means pro­tect­ing many peo­ple, some promi­nent, some reli­gious zealots but mostly ordi­nary cit­i­zens. Some of the sto­ries in the book seems like they came out right of a wild west dime novel where the killer goes in-front of a judge with the sim­ple defense of "he needed killin'".

The greater good, in this case keep­ing the fab­rics of soci­ety untan­gled and keep­ing the honor of promi­nent fam­i­lies and not-so-prominent peo­ple some­times seem to over­shadow the plane truth -- what­ever that might be.

Dis­claimer: I got this book for free