House of Guilt (Missing Mystery, 25)

Uneasy with his newly inherited wealth, cranky in unwanted retirement , former Jerusalem Police CID Chief Avram Cohen wants to be left alone to suffer. The new minister of police has other plans. Using emotional blackmail, he coerces Cohen into leading a search for the missing heir to the House of Levi-Tsur banking house.



The psychologically disturbed Simon had some peculiar haunts that take the veteran detective Cohen into Tel Aviv’s decadent nightlife, then out into Jewish settlements on the West Bank, into the Judean desert, and back to the dangerous underworld of Jewish extremists in Jerusalem. Cohen is tracking the missing man, but what he’s really hunting is confirming evidence that the Jerusalem Syndrome, a condition he believes often lies behind acts of terrorism, is at work. It is Cohen’s belief that neurotics who visit Jerusalem and confuse their identities with those of biblical characters or believe they receive messages from God cause havoc—and got him into trouble with his own superiors.



While his longtime lover Ahuva, a judge, tries to calm him, Cohen is brought face to face not only with the mystery of Simon Levi-Tsur and his powerful family, but with his own past and present failures.

The title of this Jerusalem-set mystery, the third in the series featuring police detective Avram Cohen, could refer to the Israeli state itself. One does not normally turn to crime novels to find political insights on the Mideast crisis, but Robert Rosenberg is an unusually erudite and reflective mystery novelist. In this installment, Cohen sets off through the demimonde of Tel Aviv in search of a tycoon's wayward grandson. Eventually the search leads to the West Bank and to the rage of religious zealots, Jewish and Muslim alike. Rosenberg knows his territory, and seething Israel comes marvelously to life through his sleuth's eyes.