Matt Beynon Rees, The Fourth Assassin

The Fourth Assassin

Matt Beynon Rees

Soho, Feb 2010, $24.00

ISBN: 9781569476192

Palestinian detective Omar Yussef arrives in New York City to give a speech at the U.N. on Palestinian refugee camp schools. Omar also looks forward to seeing his youngest son Ala who lives in Brooklyn.

However, instead of a family reunion, the police arrest Ala for murder. Inside his apartment is a decapitated corpse. Omar knows his son would not commit this atrocity and investigates, which leads him to Coney Island and the U.N. building

This is a great series (see The Samaritan's Secret and A Gave in Gaza), but this entry is the best to date as besides a strong whodunit, life for immigrants in a frozen aging Brooklyn neighborhood is made so real that Tancredo will empathize with the newcomers. The story line is fast-paced, but it is the picture of the Palestinian community in the northeast United States who make the tale work as Little Palestine competes with the old country (in spite of the corrupt politicians) and the glitter across the Bay that has captured their young as much as Manhattan has always captured generational Americans. This is a great Yussef mystery due to the personalization of his cast that Matt Beynon Rees brings to his strong plot.

Harriet Klausner