A Lily of the Field

August 2, 2010
Lawton has divided his atypical seventh Inspector Troy thriller (after Second Violin) in two. The first part, "Audacity," spans the years from 1934 to 1946, ranging from Vienna before the Anschluss to the site of the A-bomb test in the New Mexico desert. A straight historical narrative, it includes some powerful scenes, especially those at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, where musical prodigy Méret Voytek has been incarcerated, despite her not being Jewish. Robert Oppenheimer's role in developing America's nuclear weapons program proves relevant to the book's second half. In part two, "Austerity," set in 1948 London, Insp. Frederick Troy looks into the gunshot murder in the Underground of André Skolnik, a painter suspected of being a Soviet sleeper agent. Voytek, who survived Auschwitz, turns out to have a link to Skolnik. Those expecting a conventional crime novel should be prepared for two distinct stories with overlapping characters, only one of which involves a criminal investigation.

May 30, 2011
Jebreal refracts the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of the experience of generations of Israeli and Palestinian women, focusing ultimately on Miral, a young Palestinian orphan who comes of age in the shadow of the intifada and gradually joins the resistance. Sneha Mathan's dignified delivery has a light, indistinctly Middle Eastern accent that lends the narration authenticity. She infuses emotion through emphasis and tonal shifts, but never crosses into the overdramatic. Despite an ever-shifting cast in the first half, she keeps vocal consistency of the characters and moves into other accents seamlessly. A Penguin paperback.

June 14, 2010
This novel of a Palestinian girl growing up amid the intifada is packed with historical facts, but never rises above mediocrity. Philanthropist Hind Husseini creates a children's shelter in 1948 in response to the destruction wrought by the first Arab-Israeli war. Decades later, Miral comes into Hind's care after her mother kills herself. As Miral witnesses the effects of the Israeli campaigns against the intifada, she draws closer to the political fringes, finally choosing to join the struggle in full. Yet the benevolent influence of Hind and an eye-opening friendship with an Israeli socialist subdues Miral's radicalism and offers some hope for the future. Jebreal is a successful journalist in Italy, and true to form the plot rips along with quick-reading prose, though the characters' simplicity presents a big problem, in that, despite the dire circumstances, it's hard to connect with archetypes. It's perfectly serviceable and offers a reliable refresher of the Palestinian struggle, but there are many more distinguished novels on the subject.