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Israeli author Shoham’s gritty crime thriller set in Tel Aviv.

An elderly woman witnesses a rape as she scans the street with her high-powered binoculars, but at first, she decides not to get involved. The victim’s father helps identify a suspect named Ziv Nevo, and Detective Eli Nahum believes he has an easy case. Nevo has been found at the crime scene with no plausible explanation. He is innocent of the rape, but his real reason for being in the neighborhood is even worse. He is—well, it has to do with the Mafia. Detective Nahum is experienced, confident and careless, ready to take shortcuts and get the case over with. Under interrogation, Nevo is afraid to explain what he was doing at night in a strange neighborhood. In fact, he thinks he’s been caught for what he was really doing. Once he caves and admits he did it, he finally learns what “it” is. His protestation that he didn’t rape anyone can’t keep him out of prison. Meanwhile, Nahum gets caught carrying on an affair with a woman in the chief’s office. Nahum’s career and his marriage collapse at about the same time he realizes what shoddy police work he has done. The good news? Now he has plenty of time to exonerate Nevo, learn his secret and—perhaps hardest of all—rebuild his own marriage. What begins as a crime thriller becomes the story of a detective’s search for redemption. 

This book marks the author’s U.S. debut. Let’s hope he gives us many more stories like it.