Who might enjoy their noir flavoured with a middle-east ambience?

Tel Aviv resident Erez Brown, a private detective more engaged in getting dirt on cheating spouses, never expects to encounter violence when trying to track down a girl who has gone missing. Neither does he expect to find her dead body when he goes to check her digs a second time. Yet her mother claims to have spoken to her after her death.

Brown does not paint himself as an entirely sympathetic character, but as we get to know his inner world, it becomes clearer that he is rather damaged, following an unlucky divorce. Things are no longer that black and white to him, it is in general less clear who the true villains are, if in fact there are any souls truly knowing the love of God.

All of this is probably what makes a quality noir, noir. Rosenberg evokes a. city of illusions and dreams in Tel Aviv, as he ventures into the demi monde of the less-than kosher World of S and M (he also gets to enjoy great food on his trips out, so despite the loss of illusions, the reader participates vicariously the measures of night life too.

The conclusion is therefore as messy as might be expected with Brown being the kind of man he is, though the ambivalence of the ending may well be frustrating for those who prefer a more clear-cut whodunnit..

This new anti-hero sleuth is still one to be watched in the future though. .

I like PI stories. This one caught my eye because of the location. Tel Aviv is not some place I will ever visit. But reading a book with that setting gives me a taste of what it is like. The PI makes is money chasing cheating spouses. But when he has an opportunity to look for a long lost teen he finds himself in a bigger investigation than he is used to. Interesting story.