The Jerusalem File

By Joel Stone

"Successfully grafts a classic hard-boiled detective plot line onto the complexities and dangers of life in modern Israel" (Publishers Weekly).

Levin has been living in Jerusalem for most of his adult life. Retired from the security services, he lives alone a few streets away from his ex-wife, continents away from his children. Adrift, Levin accepts a request to follow the wife of an acquaintance and discover her secret lover. Unlike the chaotic, incomprehensible suicide bombings he's used to dealing with, at least this assignment seems like one that could possibly be solved.
As Levin watches the woman, Deborah, he begins to assess her as a potential lover might. And when the man her husband believes to be her paramour is murdered--and Deborah, in desperation, turns to Levin with her own unexpected request--his own moral universe becomes as conflicted as the struggle between Arab and Jew for the fate of the fabled city.
From the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of A Town Called Jericho, this is both a twisting thriller and a "spare, pensive but never brooding study of obsessive love" (Kirkus Reviews).

"The Jerusalem File is styled as a neo-noir mystery story set in contemporary Jerusalem. From the first page, however, the book throws off reflections of its far deeper facets. Joel Stone uses his short and elegantly crafted thriller as the occasion for something much more ambitious--a meditation on the politics of the modern Middle East and, at the same time, the more intimate politics of the human heart . . . A page-turner."--Los Angeles Times

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933372656
• ISBN13: 9781933372655
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A Terrirfic Read

A very fast read. A terrific gripping novel. Stone examines his character with the kind of intensity generally ascribed to Dostoevsky and Raskolnikov.

Good read

I like to read mysteries, but only the ones that "grab" me on the first page, have interesting characters who I want to get to know better and do, and have a plot that never lags. "The Jerusalem File" has all this plus excellent and thoughtful writing which reminded me of Graham Greene's mysteries, as well as a little of John LeCarre and even a tiny bit of Nabokov's "Lolita." My only quibble would be that, for me at least, by the book's conclusion, some small elements of the story and at least one of its characters, like Jerusalem itself, did not seem fully resolved.

The Jerusalem File

This little book is mystery and intrigue in a nutshell and anything but ordinary. It was specifically a mineral mask from the Dead Sea, but Deborah wasn't the only character wearing a mask in Stone's story nor was her mask superficial. All the characters seemed to be hiding something, as the story pulls the reader in and through the back alleyways of antiquity. Plot and subplot laces it's dark way through our emotion against a backdrop of sunsplashed stucco, as the reality of impending doom causes the characters to live in those tomorrow-may-never-come moments. The paragraph on page 126 describing tribal dread as "emotional barbed wire," is writing at its best.

The Jerusalem File

The Jerusalem File, set in an Israeli limbo land where there seems to be no resolution for the troubled political scene, the main character, Levin, after his retirement from the secret services and in a kind of personal limbo, agrees as a favor to Jacob Kaye, a sort of friend, to track down and find out if that man's wife has a lover. When the possible lover is killed (a victim of terror? a victim of murder? random? targeted?) Levin gets more and more interested in the wife, intriguing Deborah, and things get complicated to say the least as Levin's moral center does some shifting. Tensions between Levin and the Kayes intensify, as do our reactions to those between Arabs and Jews. Levin--and we--are left wondering whether there are some questions that don't have answers, where there is no real solution. The novel is paced beautifully and the language and descriptions are rich. This is a book that gets even better with re-reading, and it would be an excellent choice for a book group, for there is much to discuss. For instance is Deborah in some sense a stand-in for Israel itself, offering flawed promises? Love and life but in a crucible of death? Emotions versus clear-eyed reality? The characters throughout are wonderfully revealed, as in our glimpses of Levin's mother, a survivor of the siege of Leningrad and his father, a survivor of Auschwitz now in a mental ward. Highly recommended

The Jerusalem File, A New Look at Conflict

The Jerusalem File is a provocative look at aging, love and terrorism. Joel Stone takes on huge issues and approaches them simply. It is not so much a detective novel as a chance to rethink your priorities. There were times when Levin, the main character, made observations about terrorism that made me angry. Yet, as I continued to read the novel I found that I was not so much angry as discomforted because my beliefs and knee jerk responses were brought into question. The story makes you rethink your assumptions as Levin questions his own assumptions about aging, love and terrorism.