The Missing File

Dror Mishani grew up reading the detective stories of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie translated into Hebrew.  He has felt the lack of crime fiction in Israel since his childhood. He was inspired to write his own series of crime fiction to emulate the detective novels that he enjoyed reading.  So in his first book, The Missing File, his protagonist, police detective, Avraham Avraham says to the woman who has come to the station to report a crime,  “Do you know why there are no detective novels in Hebrew?, he then asked.  ‘What?’  ‘Why aren’t there any detective novels?  Why doesn’t Israel produce books like those of Agatha Christie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?’  ‘I don’t read much’, she replied. ‘Then I will tell you.  Because we don’t have crimes like that.  We don’t have serial killers;  we don’t have kidnappings; and there aren't many rapists out there attacking women on the streets.  Here when a crime is committed, it’s usually the neighbor, the uncle, the grandfather, and there’s no need for a complex investigation to find the criminal and clear up the mystery.  There’s simply no mystery here.”

Mishani is trying, he says, to write a realistic crime series.  He doesn’t like the detective who thinks he knows everything. He is dedicated to the tradition of the mystery genre.  He wanted to create a detective who is not brilliant or assertive.   Avraham is a sensitive character, who will grow as the series continues.   

The plot of the book, The Missing File, is about a mother who comes to the police station to report that her son is missing.  Avraham heads up the investigation of the missing person.

This story is written in the style Mishani feels he has always wanted to read in crime fiction,

“a detective mystery with true interest in the life of its characters, all its characters: the detective, of course, but also the victims, the witnesses, the criminals. I believe not every crime is a mystery but most crimes are a human drama, often a human tragedy. And I believe a good crime novel shouldn’t just be about ‘whodunit’ but should also emotionally explore this drama or tragedy. And it’s true that while writing The Missing FIle I felt as if I was reading the novel more than creating it .”

The victim in this story is Ofer Sharabi, who has disappeared from the apartment he lives in with his parents, brother and sister.  Downstairs lives the young family of Ze’ev Avni with his wife and baby.  Ze’ev becomes a prime suspect in the investigation to find Ofer. Interestingly, the name Ofer means deer and and the name Ze’ev means wolf reinforcing the relationship between these two characters in conflict through the story.  

In his second mystery novel, A Possibility of Violence, Mishani follows the same writing style.  

This time a suitcase is spotted outside a daycare and turns out to contain a fake bomb.  Avraham Avraham is assigned to the case.  The reader follows along with Avraham as he interviews all the potential suspects.  He has learned from his mistakes in the previous case so

he is less trusting of everyone he meets in connection with the mysterious suitcase.

As the investigation proceeds Avraham is trying to determine which suspect could be responsible for the bomb and now the death of the daycare owner.  This is juxtaposed with his developing relationship to Marianka, the Belgian woman he has started a romantic relationship with.  Both of these interactions are puzzling to him.  He walks along the beach after leaving the office thinking,  “In every investigation there’s a moment when it seems that the confusion before your eyes will never clear.  That the details are too numerous, too strange, distinct from one another like the people sitting on the beach.  Everything is sunk in darkness or fog.  But after some time the connections are clarified and the picture always grows clear.  In the darkness a new point of light suddenly turns on, and it illuminates the other as well; details look different, take on meaning, connect.  What looks strange at first turns out to be familiar.”

Mishani writes beautiful prose and brings the reader inside the minds of the characters in his stories.  These mystery novels are more than just a “whodunit”.  They are explorations of the human psyche.

Dror A. Mishani was born in 1975 and lived all his life in Israel.   He now lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and two children.  He has worked as a translator and an editor of Israeli fiction and crime literature for the publisher, Keter Books.  The first novel in the series, The Missing File, was shortlisted for the 2013 CWA international dagger award and won the Martin Beck award, for the best translated crime novel in Sweden.  He is currently writing his third novel for the series.