Cathy C. (cathyskye) - , reviewed on 9/8/2015 + 2307 more book reviews

Rees has created a story with a superb sense of time and place, and he does so by showing the humanity of all sides. The monsters aren't all Palestinian. Or Israeli. The mistakes being made aren't all being made by Palestinians or Israelis. And there are good people on every side. This is a story to experience. A story for the mind and for the emotions.

One of the good people is Omar Yussef, who feels that he may be coming to the end of his usefulness. He can't seem to stop being angry at the children in his class who do nothing but spout political clichés, but when he tries to destroy their hate and their blindness, all he seems to do is make himself angrier and the children distrustful of him.

The plight of George Saba is a godsend for this man. Yussef has a deep-seated need to fight injustice. For years he's been buffeted by the winds of political and religious unrest, but he is still willing to stand up for what he believes in. The power of Rees's writing is that while the reader is cheering Yussef for his bravery, he is also afraid because of what may happen to this one solitary man.

Yussef isn't Mr. Perfect. He may endear himself to us by telling us of the power of his wife's cooking or of what he believes to be the most important thing about teaching. He may enlighten us about the proliferation of murals depicting the Alps inside Bethlehem's homes, but the years have soured him a bit. He's not always right about the people he comes in contact with every day. Readers have to keep an eye on Yussef as they follow his investigation.

Omar Yussef is told early on in The Collaborator of Bethlehem that "In Palestine, there's no such thing as a good detective." Yussef still has much to learn, but I think it's safe to say that Palestine now has that badly needed investigator.

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