The Literary Murder

by Batya Gur

Overview

From award-winning and internationally acclaimed author, Batya Gur, comes this riveting mystery in which a shocking double murder at Israel's top academic institution brings Superintendent Michael Ohayon to the scene to probe the nature of creativity and unravel the mystery.

In investigating the deaths of a professor of literature and his junior colleague, Superintendent MichaelOhayon raises profound ethical questions about the relationship between the artist and his creation, and between the artist and a moral code. It brings him into contact with the academic elite and reveals the social problems and differing perspectives of Israel’s various classes. 

Known as “the Israeli Agatha Christie, Batya Gur’s The Literary Murder is a clever, compelling, and suspenseful mystery that will leave readers entertained up until the final, harrowing conclusion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062970404
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Series:	Michael Ohayon Series , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	361,534
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Batya Gur (1947-2005) lived in Jerusalem, where she was a literary critic for Haaretz, Israel's most prestigious paper. She earned her master's in Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and she also taught literature for nearly twenty years.

Editorial Reviews

The suspicious death of a scuba diver pulls Michael Ohayon, chief inspector of the Jerusalem police, into an unfamiliar world of high academicians, poets, and the petty (but sometimes fatal) spats and jealousies that run rampant in such a rarified atmosphere. The Moroccan-born Ohayon is a compassionate and considerate man and a relentless investigator, and he despises social and intellectual pretensions. When he rubs against the Israeli social and cultural elite, the sparks fly. Gur, a professor of literature in Jerusalem, knows academia well, and she uses it as a foil to illustrate the social and cultural tensions that permeate Israeli life. At the same time, she tells a fine detective yarn, keeping her cards well hidden until the end, deftly setting up the reader for twists, turns, and surprises.

Jay Freeman

Reading Gur one is struck, first, by her obvious command of the genre, and, foremost, by her exemplary psychological insight. She knows how various and complicated anyone can be, as well as how the self can be hidden even from its ostensible owner, how the mask we wear displays or distorts reality. A revealing look behind self-delusion and role-playing. Gur provides pleasure of a very high order indeed....In Literary Murder, intellectual pursuit is portrayed with vigor and grace...it's so evidently central to Batya Gur's pleasure that we can't help making it our own. -- Newsday

Dan Cryer

A star poet at Hebrew University with a history of lechery is beaten to death in his office. Days before, a young disciple of his in the department had drowned while scuba diving, and his death, too, proves to have been murder...the novel is interesting not least with the faculty's hothouse wrangling over matters of creativity and judgement...[with] suprises reserved for the denoument, the book demonstrates that excellent crime fiction is being written in many languages. -- Los Angeles Times

Charles Champlin