Crime Fiction in Countries Where the Police Is Reviled

Kishwar Desai and Dror Mishani in Lyon, 2015.

Crime fiction seems to be most popular in the countries where crime rates are low – perhaps because it is easier to read about terrible things happening when the truth around you is not stranger and more horrible than fiction. But what about those countries where the police is treated with suspicion, where there is no tradition of private detectives and where there is little hope of real justice (as opposed to vengeance)?

There was a panel at Quais du Polar in Lyon about this very subject, with authors from Russia, Costa Rica, Israel and India represented. I bought both of these books in Lyon: Liad Shoham was there in 2014, while Kishwar Desai was there this year.

Liad Shoham: Tel Aviv Suspects

No conventional crime novel, this is a story of guilt and fears, of mistrust, of crossed wires in communication, misunderstanding, prejudices, jumping to conclusions and… the weaknesses of the police and justice system. Not an overtly political book (which is saying something, set as it is in Israel), but a very interesting look at the larger picture surrounding a crime, the impact it has on everyone involved.

Every single one of the characters has a flawed reasoning, although some of them have good intentions. Elie Nahoum is a middle-aged, old-school police detective who begins to fear he may have arrested the wrong person in a rape case. The ‘rapist’ has something more serious to hide and is being coerced by his conspirators to plead guilty to the crime. The rape victim’s father is keen to accuse somebody and give his daughter back her peace of mind. The police, the prosecutor, potential witnesses all look to their own petty interests, try to save face, face their own fears and refuse to admit their own guilt. When Elie voices his concerns, he is suspended from active duty (and his greatest fear with that is that his wife will expect him to do something more around the house, instead of their traditional gender division of labour – just to show you how old-school he is, and how the author gently mocks him).

Liad Shoham and yours truly in Lyon, 2014.

So not at all what I expected, but a rich, enlightening read. Shoham has a more laid-back and chatty style than the other Israeli crime fiction writer I’ve read,  the rather minimalist Dror Mishani.

#TBR7 in a change to the plan, because Raven waxed lyrical about another of Shoham’s books, which I now also want to read. He’s also a really lovely, humorous man, so here’s another picture of him at the Quais du Polar.

 

Kishwar Desai: Witness the Night

This could be a very depressing book, given the subject matter (the murder of an entire extended family, a traumatised young girl as a possible suspect, female infanticide and political corruption). But Desai has a deft, lively style and a thoroughly likeable, unconventional, disobedient middle-aged heroine in Simran Singh. A delight to read, but also a great debate about social issues in a country of great contrasts. My full review is on Crime Fiction Lover.

#TBR6

(So, yes, the #TBR20 is going reasonably well, have read 9 to date, but have a few books barging in now for immediate reviews.)

Reading Both Sides: Egyptian and Israeli Literature

I’ve recently read my first Egyptian novel and my first Israeli crime novel, although this was coincidence rather than a deliberate attempt to read across both sides of a long-standing conflict in the Middle East. Unlike the works of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, however, neither of the two books were political, although they both paint portraits of rapidly changing societies with many cracks beneath the surface.

Naguib Mahfouz: The Beginning and the End

Mahfouz is the only Arabic-speaking winner of the Nobel Literature Prize (in 1988). He almost single-handedly modernised Egyptian literature, introducing themes such as politics, existentialism, the voice of the dispossessed, as well as cinematic techniques to his storytelling. This novel is the story of the downfall of a Cairo family in the 1930s, an account of their struggle to survive and make ends meet following the death of the father, a petty government bureaucrat. Although the children are almost fully grown, their efforts to earn money and help the rest of them rise from poverty are beset with difficulties every step of the way.

I was not overly impressed with the book, which reads like a soap opera, until I considered how revolutionary it must have been for its period. The author gives us an unvarnished picture of Egyptian society at a particular point in time: the 1930s and 1940s. We see the corruption and machinations of the Egyptian bureaucracy, its education system, the plotting to marry off daughters, the dangers of women losing their virginity. Yet, although all this societal constraints seem to be suffocating the protagonists, Mahfouz makes no bones about laying an equal share of the blame upon them. Their weaknesses, lack of restraint, selfish behaviours, self-justifications all contribute to the tragic outcomes.

I have not read his other books, but I understand that Mahfouz is highly regarded precisely not only for modernising the language of fiction but also for his detailed examination of daily events in the life of middle-class families, in a society which has undergone major changes over the course of a few decades. It’s this translation of major political events into small everyday happenings and interpretations, this fresco of a vanishing way of life, which makes his work so valuable within his own cultural context. But his family sagas of greed, lies, misguided idealism and disappointments also touch universal themes.

D. A. Mishani: A Possibility of Violence

A bomb planted in a suitcase in present-day Tel Aviv – this has all of the hallmarks of a political thriller, but it turns out to be a much more personal story of revenge, confusion, parental love and fear. The style could not be more different from Mahfouz: almost clinically detached, sober, simple and precise language. Emotion is still there, but well concealed and tightly controlled throughout.

Mishani is a former editor and specialist of crime fiction, and he uses all the usual crime tropes well in his work. This is clearly a book designed to entertain rather than create a polemical debate. Yet this is not a typical police procedural: we catch glimpses of the complex environment that the police have to operate under in Israel today. Apparently, the police are universally reviled by all ethnic groups living within the borders of Israel, even by those citizens who revere the army. Although the author eschews political views in this book, there are echoes of the tensions between different subgroups within society, rumblings about the way in which Filipino care workers are treated and regarded in this country made up almost entirely of immigrants.

 

Writers I’ve Discovered – Quais du Polar Part 2

One of the best aspects of literary festivals is that you get the chance to see and hear new authors you might otherwise never have discovered. Their personality (and in some cases, let’s admit it, their looks, yes, I’m thinking of Camilla Läckberg or Jo Nesbø) wins you over and entices you to try out their books. Combine it with the opportunity to buy their books on the spot in paperback (rather than the expensive hardback you often get at British literary festivals) and spend quite a bit of time chatting with them at the signing (and having your picture taken)… you have the recipe for a perfect day. Here are some of the new (to me) authors I have encountered this year.

A delightful Liad Shoham poses.

For a long time we were told that crime fiction is not a viable genre in Israel: there are too many current tensions and conflicts in that area for people to want to read about them in their fiction as well. Initially, the only way to publish crime fiction was under an ‘American-sounding’ name, featuring cops and robbers very far removed from the readers’ own reality. In the last two decades, however, it has gone mainstream in Israeli culture and has given a voice to subgroups that often go unheard. That is just what Liad Shoham, a hugely popular crime writer and self-confessed legal geek, has set out to do: in his latest novel he discusses African immigrants from Eritrea and Northern Sudan, a hidden side of Tel Aviv that most of its inhabitants are completely unaware of.  He  is beginning to be translated into English. For a funny anecdote about the inspiration behind one of his recent novels, see this personal essay here.

Emmanuel Grand’s debut novel is about Ukrainian and Romanian immigrant communities in France: a life on the edge, people smuggling and other nefarious practices. Can this be handled sensitively, without descending into clichés and sensationalism? A topic I am particularly sensitive to, having suffered prejudice about my origins virtually all my life. We’ll have to wait and see.

Jeremie Guez, on his 4th novel at just 26.

Jérémie Guez is another author who deserves to be translated into English. The dark portrayal of the desperate youths of the Parisian banlieue in his first three novels have now given way to the post-war history of Indochina in his latest novel ‘Le dernier tigre rouge’. For a French review of this latest novel, see here.

Ace Atkins may be a bestselling author in his native United States, but I’ll be honest: I’d never heard of him before seeing him on the music panel. Living as he does in the Southern United States (Mississippi), professing a love for blues, jazz and gospel (the perfect backdrop for crime fiction and noir) and talking so wisely about the rhythm and music of language in a novel, I just have to find out more about him and read his work. He also talked about how listening to classical jazz for the Boston PI series he is writing for the Robert B. Parker estate helps him to access a different part of his brain and has led to a very different writing style.

Ace Atkins (centre) and Paul Colize (right) prepare to be interviewed by Vincent Raymond.

Paul Colize is a prize-winning Belgian crime fiction writer, part of a new Belgian wave which is conquering the French-speaking world at least (together with Barbara Abel and Nadine Monfils). I’ve long thought that some of the best so-called French things come out of Belgium (Tintin, Spirou, Goscinny of Asterix fame, Jacques Brel and Stromae, for example), and when I heard Colize was also a pianist and that he wanted to be a Beatle at the age of 9, I just had to find out more. His novel Back Up is a romp through the musical world of the 1960s as well as a thrilling crime story. For an interview (in French) about his latest novel ‘Un long moment de silence’, see here.