Murder in Jerusalem: A Michael Ohayon Mystery

Gur's tremendous literary gifts are on full display in her sixth contemporary Israeli mystery to feature the understated but insightful Sephardic detective, Insp. Michael Ohayon (after 2005's Bethlehem Road Murder ). The death of set designer Tirzah Rubin, found beneath a fallen pillar on the set of a film adaptation of S.Y. Agnon's Iddo and Eynam , appears to be an accident, but later evidence that it was murder brings Ohayon and his team into the swirl of personalities and politics that make up the national TV station, Channel One. When a witness to Tirzah's final moments also dies, from an overdose of heart medicine while hospitalized, the pressure on Ohayon intensifies. Once again, Gur uses a classic whodunit plot to explore human passions and insecurities with a sophistication equal to that of P.D. James and other better known authors of psychological crime fiction. The concluding moral dilemma Ohayon faces would have been fascinating to follow in future inquiries that will, alas, go unwritten, as Gur died in 2005. (Aug.)