Farewell, My Babylon

full teaser post to be published 19 February 2023 at https://wellreadpiratequeen.blogspot.com/2023/02/ISWIR-FarewellMyBabylon-Rosenfeld.html

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Dashiell Hammett gave us Sam Spade. Raymond Chandler gave us Philip Marlowe. Mickey Spillane gave us Mike Hammer. Now, Davidy Rosenfeld has given us Erez Brown. It reads like a classic noir but set in modern Tel Aviv, Israel.

All of Brown's cases kept me turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next. Will he find the missing daughter? Is the wife really cheating? Is the husband? Where's the ice cream money??? Rosenfeld really drew me in, though, with Brown and everyone he encountered -- his clients, staff, friends, and even the police who are sure he's leaving something out even when he's not. I could see them and hear them and, more than a few times, wanted to buy them a beer. My brain has already cast Eric Balfour as Erez and Inbar Lavi as his secretary Mazal, who could easily ranks right up there with Mike Hammer's Velda in terms of awesomeness.

The most fascinating character for me, though, was Tel Aviv:

"They say this city is a bubble. What it really is, is a broken mirror reflecting countless dreams. Tel Aviv is the capital of unfulfilled fantasies; the port Odysseus never reached; the grand lottery win missing only a single number; Pamela Anderson’s boobs…"

I've never been, but it feels like I have. Brown heard a song about Barcelona and though he had never been, he missed it. I'm going to feel the same about Tel Aviv until I get my hands on the next book and hopefully many more to come.

Who might enjoy their noir flavoured with a middle-east ambience?

Tel Aviv resident Erez Brown, a private detective more engaged in getting dirt on cheating spouses, never expects to encounter violence when trying to track down a girl who has gone missing. Neither does he expect to find her dead body when he goes to check her digs a second time. Yet her mother claims to have spoken to her after her death.

Brown does not paint himself as an entirely sympathetic character, but as we get to know his inner world, it becomes clearer that he is rather damaged, following an unlucky divorce. Things are no longer that black and white to him, it is in general less clear who the true villains are, if in fact there are any souls truly knowing the love of God.

All of this is probably what makes a quality noir, noir. Rosenberg evokes a. city of illusions and dreams in Tel Aviv, as he ventures into the demi monde of the less-than kosher World of S and M (he also gets to enjoy great food on his trips out, so despite the loss of illusions, the reader participates vicariously the measures of night life too.

The conclusion is therefore as messy as might be expected with Brown being the kind of man he is, though the ambivalence of the ending may well be frustrating for those who prefer a more clear-cut whodunnit..

This new anti-hero sleuth is still one to be watched in the future though. .