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From award-winning and internationally acclaimed author, Batya Gur, comes this riveting mystery in which a shocking double murder at Israel's top academic institution brings Superintendent Michael Ohayon to the scene to probe the nature of creativity and unravel the mystery. In investigating the deaths of a professor of literature and his junior colleague, Superintendent Michael Ohayon raises profound ethical questions about the relationship between the artist and his creation, and between the artist and a moral code. It brings him into contact with the academic elite and reveals the social problems and differing perspectives of Israel's various classes. Known as "the Israeli Agatha Christie, Batya Gur's The Literary Murder is a clever, compelling, and suspenseful mystery that will leave readers entertained up until the final, harrowing conclusion.… (more)
User reviews
Set in Israel, Ohayon is a superintendent with the Jerusalem Police. Within the space of a weekend, two people who are associated with the Hebrew Literature Department of the Hebrew university are murdered. Ohayon investigates.
That’s the plot. It does have
The writing in this book, given that Gur is a literary critic for a leading Israeli publication, is surprisingly mediocre. It works for the story but is uninspired to say the least. Her characters are pretty one-dimensional, and you wind up not really caring what happens to them. Which is too bad, really, because she does come up with a nicely varied cast. It’s no surprise, though, to find out that university politics is the same the world over.
What is really annoying about this book is the quantity o peetic analysis thrown in. it may be, as the jacket blurbs comment, a passion of Gur’s, but it does nothing for the book. I followed most of it with difficulty, got totally lost in some sections, and was extremely irritated by the last, lengthy section which purported to sum up the semester and did nothing of the sort. As a former university teacher, I found that annoying.
This is not a book I would particularly recommend. Too much wrong with it despite some nice plotting.
The plot was based on a employees of the Department of Literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but more specifically those who are involved with teaching poetry. There is no way I could have guessed the end of this book because the key to what happened really lies almost at the end of the book in a subplot. I generally don't like mysteries that go on and on and only reveal the entire twisty plot in the end, but this was an interesting story throughout.
I have other books by Batya Gur. Now I Ilook forward to reading those as well.