The Red Balcony: A Novel

by Jonathan Wilson

Hardcover, 2023

Status

Available

Call number

F WIL Red

Publication

Schocken (2023), 272 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:Based on actual events, a gripping novel of sex, love, history and justice in the tinderbox of British Mandatory Palestine, by the acclaimed author of A Palestine Affair "The story of what is arguably Israel�??s foundational murder trial�??a tale of multiple identities and loyalties." �??Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus It�??s 1933, and Ivor Castle, Oxford-educated and Jewish, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel in the trial of the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a leader of the Jewish community in Palestine whose efforts to get Jews out of Hitler�??s Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed.   While preparing for the trial, Ivor, an innocent to the politics of the case, falls into bed and deeply in love with Tsiona, a free-spirited artist who happened to sketch the accused men in a Jerusalem café on the night of the murder and may be a key witness. As Ivor learns the hard way about the violence simmering just beneath the surface of British colonial rule, Jonathan Wilson dazzles with his mastery of the sun-drenched landscape and the subtleties of the warring agendas among the Jews, Arabs, and British.   And as he travels between the crime scene in Tel Aviv and the mazelike streets of Jerusalem, between the mounting mysteries surrounding this notorious case and clandestine lovemaking in Tsiona�??s studio, Ivor must discover where his heart lies: whether he cares more for the law or the truth, whether he is more an Englishman or a Jew, and where and with wh… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member maryreinert
Interesting, really "tight" plot, believable characters: Set in the 1930's in the British Mandate of Palestine, this provides some history about that time period in a very readable way. Ivor Castle is a British Jew recently graduated from Oxford and sent to Palestine in order to assist an
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experienced Jewish lawyer in the defense of two Russian Jews who are accused of killing a man who has bartered a sort of peace with Nazi Germany some Jews to leave Germany. This idea is controversial from both the right and the left.

Ivor is sent to question a young woman who supposedly saw the two men in a cafe at the time the murders took place Tsiona is a free-spirited artist who has made pictures of the men, but when did she actually draw those pictures. Ivor falls madly in love with Tsiona. Meanwhile other factions are working to free the men, such as Ivor's college acquaintance who tells him that an Arab man will confess to the murder, which he does, only to later refute the confession.

The plot is easily followed with no extraneous threads, the writing is clear, the situations are believable. It was a book I almost wanted to reread just to see who neatly the plot comes together. Great writing set in an interesting place which shows how very complicated the Israel/Arab situation is
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Language

Original language

English

Physical description

272 p.; 8.53 inches

ISBN

0805243690 / 9780805243697
Page: 0.114 seconds