Asylum City

Another crime novel writer from Israel, Liad Shoham.  This is quite exciting.  I wrote my masters thesis on murder mystery authors and their detectives and had not run across this author, but he is terrific.  This was a great mystery novel that keeps the reader intrigued and trying to uncover the murder all the way through.

There are many characters to follow so you have to stay on your toes, but as you follow along it all starts to make sense.  There are the police officers, some corrupt and others uncovering the criminal element that runs the crime network.  There are corrupt lawyers, who are under the thumb of the crime lord.  Whenever there is a system in place that keeps the poor indigent, immigrant in poverty there is a criminal underworld that is taking advantage of the system to create a network of illegal activity.

This is the story of immigrant Africans coming in from Ethiopia and Eritea who find it hard to become an Israeli citizen.  As they come into the country they can either become involved with people really have their best interest in mind, like Michal Poleg or they can get mixed up with the underworld figures like "The General' and "The Banker" who offer assistance but not really to help the immigrants but to line their own pockets.

When Michal Poleg uncovers the corruption and is killed for her efforts the police and the network are in a race to see who will find "The General" first.  The reader is taken along for the ride with a wonderfully descriptive story that keep you guessing till the end.

The book deals with an important issue that faces not only Israel but others countries around the world, how to take care of the many people coming from countries with harsh governments to seek refuge in another country.  This book along with being a intriguing mystery story tries to explain how it is hard to bring all these refugees into the country and how they are exploited.  Shoham has done a fantastic job writing these real issues in a entertaining story line.

Liad Shoham is Israel's leading crime writer and a practicing attorney with degrees from Jerusalem's Hebrew University and the London School of Economics. All his crime novels have been critically acclaimed bestsellers. He lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and two children.  He has also written the novel  Line Up and is working on his next book featuring police officer Anat Nachmias.