(Note: Here at the Book Review, we are not allowed to discuss our covert jobs with the intelligence services.) He is also a spy for the C.I.A., reporting to his handler, Vance Eady, who is also the magazine’s top editor. ✹ ‘So, starting today, this little sex ring of yours is over.’Īs an investigative reporter for The Sovereign, a National Geographic-ish magazine in Washington, D.C., Tom Klay swashbuckles across continents exposing malfeasance, eluding romantic commitment and spending eye-watering amounts of money courtesy of his seemingly bottomless expense account. The mystery is absorbing, but so is the passionate debate over how the world views women who decide not to have children - and how they view themselves. “I had a relationship with an older woman too,” he announces.īlau, an award-winning playwright in Israel, wades bravely and sometimes heavy-handedly into issues of sex, religion and aging. Will Sheila be the next victim? Or is she the killer? Her account, translated from the Hebrew by Daniella Zamir, is full of bravado, misdirection and self-justification, particularly when it comes to Sheila’s feelings for the unprofessionally flirtatious 20-something detective assigned to the case. Life has not turned out so well for them, given that one woman committed suicide many years ago and a second has now been murdered.
There’s something particularly creepy about a baby doll at a crime scene. Two decades earlier, she, Dina and two other glamorous university friends in Tel Aviv formed a group with a radical founding principle: They would never become mothers.
Sheila, a 41-year-old museum tour guide specializing in the childless women of the Bible, is the book’s snarky, unreliable narrator. “There you have it, Dina, you’re finally a mother,” thinks Sheila, an old frenemy of the victim. To add to the macabre nature of the opening tableau in THE OTHERS (Mulholland, 233 pp., $28), by the Israeli author Sarah Blau, the word “mother” is scrawled in blood-red lipstick on the corpse’s forehead. There’s something singularly creepy about a baby doll at a crime scene, particularly when glued to the cold dead hands of a feminist scholar known for her vow never to have children. What better way to relax during the coming months than with a stack of juicy thrillers? Here you will find murders, ghosts, psychological intrigue, legal disputes and domestic dramas - a book for every mood.
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