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The Saladin Murders (Omar Yussef Mystery Series)
 
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The Saladin Murders (Omar Yussef Mystery Series) (Paperback)

by Matt Rees (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £11.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 340 pages
  • Publisher: Atlantic Books (1 Feb 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1843547074
  • ISBN-13: 978-1843547075
  • Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 300,153 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
"'Meet the next big sleuth in crime fiction... A genuine gripper.' Independent: The Saladin Murders, the second in the Omar Yussef mystery series, continues to build a major new crime franchise. 'Intricate and clever... What makes this book so outstanding is its evocation of daily life in hideous circumstances, and the survival of human decency in an utterly indecent situation.' Literary Review 'This book stands out from the pack... A dark and lonely tale.' Glasgow Herald"

The Economist 3/4/2008
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.

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The Saladin Murders (Omar Yussef Mystery Series)
66% buy the item featured on this page:
The Saladin Murders (Omar Yussef Mystery Series) 4.2 out of 5 stars (5)
£10.79
The Bethlehem Murders: A Novel (Omar Yussef Mystery Series)
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Another Solid Outing for Omar Yussef, 2 Feb 2008
By A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Grave in Gaza (Omar Yussef Mysteries) (Hardcover)
As someone raised in the Arab world and a fan of the crime genre, I'd long been awaiting something like Rees' first Omar Yussef mystery, last year's The Collaborator of Bethlehem. That debut wasn't flawless, but on the whole, was a very promising start to the Palestine/Israel-set series. Now 50-something former alcoholic Omar Yussef returns for another mystery, this time in Gaza. Employed as a principal and schoolteacher in a U.N. refugee school on the West Bank, the story finds him accompanying his Swedish boss on an inspection tour of U.N. schools in Gaza.

Upon entering Gaza, they are joined by a Scottish U.N. security officer, ex-soldier James Cree. Almost instantly, the trio are plunged into the confusing briar patch of Gaza politics, as they take on the case of a local U.N. schoolteacher who has been arrested by one of the several local police/military/intelligence forces. This also coincides with large meeting of Palestinian bigwigs and power brokers, providing an excuse for Omar Yussef's friend from Bethlehem, Brigadier Khamis Zeydan to be on hand, along with his mysterious local fixer, Sami. Zeydan warns his friend and the U.N. men that everything in Gaza is connected, and if you start tugging at one case, you'll find yourself unraveling all kind of things best left untouched.

Of course they continue in the face of his warning and are soon embroiled in a very complicated power-play between various Gaza factions. The story becomes increasingly ruthless and violent, and as in the previous book, those who do not want to face the reality of Palestinian factionalism, pervasive corruption, and intercinine bloodshed, will find this a trying read. The one main flaw in the book is one I've encountered in other series set in unusual places, and that is overexplaining. The problem facing the knowledgeable or native author is that they know all the ins and outs of their setting, but the reader will not. So, the simplest solution is to involve some kind of foreign characters (here, the two U.N. men), who act as stand-ins for the Western reader, and provide some kind of pretext for other native characters to deliberately explain things to them. In a very real sense, Omar Yussef is an outsider here as well, and the story depends a little too much on fixer Sami arranging things. Another minor flaw is that it's often unclear who is speaking in what language. This is actually somewhat important to the story, since the Swede speaks no Arabic, the Scot a little, and Omar Yussef is supposed to act as translator. However, in many of the meetings throughout the book, I had to stop and reread to figure out who could understand what portions of the conversation.

Despite these various quibbles, the book is another solid entry in a series that doesn't shy away from the ugly realities of life as a Palestinian. Crammed with details from the personal (such as food, family, and daily life) to the political, it offers a perspective of Gaza one simply can't get from news accounts.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Topical thriller, 1 Dec 2008
Matt Rees' second Omar Yussef novel, sees the Palestinian school teacher turned detective caught up in the turmoil of Gaza.

How true are the surroundings to the tale? For Rees paints a bleak picture of competing militia and their disregard for fellow countrymen, in an area that he used to work in.

Yussef is an interesting character, in his fifties, a respectful family man, unsure of Islam and its fundamentalists, most of whom are bloodthirsty and just want a piece of each other let alone a piece of the Israeli's.

That said, it's an intriguing topical thriller, worth the marks alone for daring to set what seems a plausible and believeable character amidst the mayhem of Gaza.

Worth a try.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Omar Yussef does it again!, 9 April 2008
By Brian Medhurst - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A great read - to match that of Matt's first novel, "The Bethlehem Murders". It's a book that's hard to put down because of its pace and activity, but at the same time 'brings home' some of the reality of life (if one can call it living) in Gaza. Being a senior citizen myself, retired form the world of education, I find it most engaging to follow the activities of Omar Yussef who is also getting on in years! I would recommend this book unreservedly to any reader.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful novel with great impact
Like the first Omar Yussef novel The Bethlehem Murders: A Novel (Omar Yussef Mystery Series)the first page bears a superscription that tells us that "The crimes in this book are... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Colin Fortune

3.0 out of 5 stars Revealingly disappointing follow-up?
I read and enjoyed The Bethlehem Murders, and was disappointed when this book just gave me the same stuff again, but without any of the first's emotion. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Banjanx

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