Ellis Shuman's Blog, page 8

Review of 'Malign Intent' by Robert Craven

GardaInspector P.J. Crowe returns in Malign Intent by Robert Craven (December2023), a sequel to the crime thriller A Kind of Drowning. As in theprevious book, Crowe's career is in tatters, his position in the forceuncertain. At the beginning of one shift, he is called to investigate when abody, dressed in outdoor gear, is found swaying from a tree at the edge of aforest.

"Youare to close it off as a suicide," his boss, Chief SuperintendentO'Suilleabháin, instructs him. "Official, like."

"Suicide,not proven," Crowe replies. For him, 'not proven meant doubt. Doubtimplied a crime… He didn't like it, but Crowe had a murder on his hands.' Ofthis, only he is convinced, so he sets out himself to solve the crime.

IsCrowe up for the mission? His superiors believe he is 'still recovering from anadjustment reaction linked to the circumstances in which he finds himself.' Hisviolent assault and battery escapades in a previous case are well known, leadinghim to avoid social media and its toxic trolling, but Crowe insists he is"calmer now… less extreme."

"Idid what any good cop would do," Crowe reassures a fellow inspector. Solvingthis murder case is, for him, 'a solid piece of real police work… For the firsttime in nearly two years, Crowe felt the surge of intent. A reminder to him asto why he became a policeman. To protect the public.'

Malign Intent will appeal to readers who appreciate police procedural crime fiction.Capturing one's attention is the thriller's setting in rural Ireland. Ireland,with its rutted moonscapes and coastal fogs, and the vanilla and black thunderheadsrolling inwards from the sea.

ForCrowe, 'every crime has a window of opportunity; a golden few minutes, hours,and days before threads of evidence start to wither and go cold or disperse aslife continues on without the dead.'. The long days of Ireland's Atlanticautumnal rains are coming, and the clock is ticking for Crowe to solve thecrime. We are partner to his investigation, assured that no matter what itsresult, we anticipate meeting Crowe again in his future cases.

Robert Craven is an award-winning Irish author of thrilling fiction. His novel, EaglesHunt Wolves was the winner of the 2021 Firebird Book Award for bestAction/Adventure. His other novels include the Eva series (Get Lenin, Zinnman,A Finger of Night, Hollow Point, and Eagles Hunt Wolves);the Steampunk novel The Mandarin Cipher; and the crime thriller AKind of Drowning. His short stories have been published in threeanthologies and he is also a regular reviewer of CDs for the Independent IrishReview Ireland.

War Diary: Living the Normal Life

It's a warm, sunny Saturday in December, a perfect day for hiking. I'venever previously explored the forests and cliffs of the Mount Carmel NatureReserve and National Park, but when I join a group of ten other avid hikers, I realizehow much I've missed. Venturing downwards from a parking lot above Beit Oren,we make our way through the rugged woodland of the Alon Valley to where itmeets the Oren Stream, with a stop at the En Alon spring.

Fifty kilometers to the north, Hezbollah shells Israeli kibbutzim and rocketsare falling in Kiryat Shmona. Unidentified drones infiltrate into Israeliairspace and IDF forces respond with widespread strikes in southern Lebanon.

Sunday morning promises the same fair weather as the day before and Itake the train into Tel Aviv to begin another ordinary work day at my high-techInternet company.

Seventy kilometers to the south, Israeli forces push deeper into thecentral and southern regions of the Gaza Strip, backed by heavy air andartillery fire. Every morning, the media begins its news reports with "Ithas been cleared for publication that the following soldiers fell in battle."Luckily, my colleagues who were called up for emergency army duty are safe andI'm relieved to see them when they come to work for the first time sinceOctober 7th.

At home, renovations are three months behind schedule. Our contractor'sregular workers live in the West Bank and Palestinians are not allowed to enterIsrael these days. The contractor has been employing East Jerusalem residentson a day-by-day basis, and progress is never guaranteed.

But who am I to complain that there is still scaffolding outsidemy bedroom or that our new kitchen has no walls or floors or electricity? About200,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their communities near theGaza Strip and from the northern border with Lebanon. They lost their homesnearly three months ago, and it's not clear when they will be allowed to goback.

My family gets together every Friday night for a joyous, and quitelively Shabbat dinner.

Some 130 Israelis are still being held hostage in Gaza. We don't know howmany of them are actually alive.

I continue to live my normal life, while in reality, nothing in Israelis normal these days.

Hamas still threatens to destroy Israel and we continue to fight back.We will fight back until there is no more Hamas, until our hostages come home,until our citizens can live safe and secure lives.

Life goes on, and if nothing else, this is Israel's biggest victory inthe war so far.

Related articles:

Israel at War. Again.

War Diary: Day 5

War Diary: What Terrifies Me More Than Anything Else

War Diary - How Do You Cope?

 

"A Wedding in Tel Aviv" - short story

"Hareiat mekudeshet li…"

"Mekudeshet!"

"Mazaltov!"

Moments later,after stamping his foot to break the glass, the groom kissed his bride and theirfamilies rushed to crowd around them under the simple cloth huppahcanopy. The grey-bearded rabbi stepped back, his role in the short ceremony ofsanctifying their union completed, and the DJ raised the music to anear-splitting level.

"Aren’tyou going to congratulate them?" Miri asked.

"Not yet,"I said, holding back as the wedding guests surged past, getting in line to hugthe new couple, to plant air kisses on their cheeks, to shake their hands."I'm not sure he'll remember me. We haven't seen each other sincechildhood."

"Ofcourse, he remembers you! He invited you to the wedding, after all. Go up therealready."

I hesitated.Too many people, too much noise—the typical hubbub of an Israeli garden wedding.I would approach the groom when things got quieter, when I'd have a chance to saymore to him than a perfunctory "Mazal tov!"

Read the rest of the story on TheMockingOwl Roost: Unexpected Delights, page 37 of the PDF.

Photo by Andreas Rønningen on Unsplash

Volunteering to Help Israeli Farmers

"I've been here for 60 years and I'm just not going to continue,"said the tired-looking moshavnik from the south. His Thai workers had fled, arocket had hit one of his greenhouses, his pepper plants' leaves were wilted,and the vegetables were dying on their stems. We were there, picking what wecould to salvage his crop.

For the past month, I have been volunteering one day a week to help saveIsraeli agriculture in the hard-hit south. There are many kibbutzim andmoshavim that need help and I feel like this is the way I can contribute to mycountry's war efforts.

I have found places to volunteer by following dedicated Facebook groups,and by visiting websites that advertise volunteering opportunities. A fewback-and-forth chats on WhatsApp and the details are arranged. Where to report,and at what hour. 'Wear long pants', the advertisements state. 'Bring food forthe day.' 'Come with a good spirit'. And the volunteers come.

My first volunteering was in a pomelo orchard jointly owned by abusiness entity and Kibbutz Bror Hayil. Before the war, Thai workers worked inthe orchards, along with some Bedouins. Seventy percent of the crop is forexport; the rest is for the local market. I set to work picking thethick-skinned green spheres. My arms were quickly scratched-up by the thornybranches. Along with other individual volunteers, the picking that day was doneby a delegation of Knesset members, and a busload of soldiers, who picked thefruit with rifles still slung over their shoulders.

The owner of the pepper greenhouse on Moshav Shorsheret barely said aword to my daughter and me when we showed up to help pick his crop. We were toldto pick every red pepper we saw, except for the very small ones. There would beno second pass through the plants because the farm had lost all its workers.The plants were in bad shape, for lack of care. Still, we filled crate aftercrate with red peppers. The owner stated that we were six weeks late with theharvest.

The avocados of an orchard near Ashkelon are mostly destined for export toFrance, and from there they will be marketed all over Europe. Here, too, allthe workers had fled. There are three varieties of avocados grown; we werepicking Haas avocados. The trees were tall and full of fruit and the leaveswere very pleasing to the touch. The orchard's manager told me that they wouldbe picking for the next three months, if they had enough volunteers to do thework.

There is a lot of satisfaction in picking fruit and vegetables, butplanting shows that we haven't given up hope. We plant because we're preparingfor next season, working towards a fruitful future.

I reported to an open field near Gedera. This farm is owned by twomoshavim, and luckily for the owners, some of its Thai workers had remained.They were planting cauliflowers the day I arrived, something usually done witha machine, but it had rained the previous day. The seedlings needed to be plantednow, and there was much work to be done. The owners were extremely grateful tothe volunteers that had arrived to assist them.

It's extremely difficult to plant seedlings in a muddy field. The groundwas wet, and in some cases, we stuck our hands through puddles of water to makesure the plants were properly spaced apart. Crouching down, I felt a physicalstrain on my muscles that would be painful for many days. I stuck one seedling intothe ground after another. My clothes got dirty, and my boots were covered by somuch mud it felt like they were filled with cement. But despite the mud, the entirefield was soon planted with cauliflower. I promised the owners that I would beback in four months' time to help with the harvest.

Helping Israeli farmers, working to save the country's agriculture, is avery satisfying feeling. It gives a sense of playing an active role in the wareffort. We are strong; we are resilient. Working together, in the orchards andin the fields, we will ensure the success of this year's harvest and nextseason's crops.

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

"Jerusalem Marathon" Nominated for the Pushcart Prize

I am excited to share that my short story "Jerusalem Marathon,"published by the San Antonio Review on November 19th, has been nominated forthe prestigious Pushcart Prize.

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by PushcartPress that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literarywhatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Smallpresses are allowed to submit up to six works that they have published. The SanAntonio Review submitted five poems and one short story.

"Out of hundreds of publications and thousands of submissions, themost revered pieces by SAR contributors have been nominated for this year's PushcartPrize!" the San Antonio Review said in its announcement.

You're invited to read "Jerusalem Marathon".

"Jerusalem Marathon" - short story

They gathered near the Knesset. High school girls in modest skirtscolor-matched with running tights, yeshiva students sporting brand-name runningshoes. Soldiers in uniform and start-up employees before the start of theirworkday. Individuals, friends, youngsters and athletic adults, the experiencedand those here for the first time, everyone wearing the same lime greendry-wear shirt. All waited for the announcement that would kick off the race.

The sky was blue and promising, the early morning air crisp and refreshing.A perfect day for the Jerusalem Marathon. The main event, 42.2 kilometers long,would take the runners through downtown Jerusalem and north all the way to Mt.Scopus. The race circuit snaked through the Old City’s Jaffa Gate and along thenarrow alleyways of the Armenian Quarter. Out Zion Gate, around Mt. Zion, up asteep hill to the old train station and through German Colony. South to theArnona neighborhood, back towards the city center, and down the home stretch tothe finish line at Sacher Park.

A festive day, carnival-like, for both the runners and those who cameto cheer them on. Municipality and national flags furled in the light breeze; colorfulballoons with the Marathon logo rose into the sky. Loud music competed with thecall of vendors at stalls selling sporting equipment and refreshments. Bottlesof mineral water were handed out to all who asked. And of course, a platform awaitedthe medalists—the top three finalists in each race.

All of this Mordechai Hirschfeld saw on the small television screen hungon the back wall of the lobby. He leaned forward in his wheelchair with greatanticipation for the race’s starting gun. The television camera scanned the anxiousfaces of the runners crowded next to the starting line, and Mordechai shiftedhis legs on their pedals, as if he, too, was waiting to run with them, to fightfor position and push forward until he had a clear straightaway where he couldpick up speed. He would show them, he thought.

“What are you doing, Mordie? Imagining you’re running in theMarathon?”

Mordechai looked over at Spiegel, his neighbor from across the hall inBeit Gilboa, the assisted living retirement home in southern Jerusalem. Spiegelwas sitting on a hard chair, a silver-framed walker parked at his side. “I wasa runner in my day,” Mordechai said proudly. “You should have seen me then. Ifit wasn’t for my legs, I would be there now,” he said, pointing at thetelevision.

Read the rest of the story on San Antonio Review.

War Diary: How Do You Cope?

Pictures of the hostages on a sign to buy local Israeli productsThe television news is on. The news is always on. Rockets, sirens. Asoldier's death. Scenes of destruction in Gaza. Scenes of destruction in thekibbutzim. The wounded. Unfathomable terror. The hostages.

Panelists discuss the issues. There are no answers.

Doomscrolling a Facebook news feed. Memes, links to articles.Descriptions of antisemitic marches and attacks on Jews worldwide. Fund-raisingefforts and rallies of support. Tales of the victims. The hostages.

People ask me if I'm OK, but none of us are OK. My son and son-in-laware too old to serve in the army reserves and we don't personally know any ofthe victims, but with rockets flying overhead, and the bombings in Gaza as wellas rocket interceptions over Tel Aviv audible from our home, this is all verypersonal.

So, how do you cope? How can you manage these unmanageable days?Everyone has their own survival guide. This is mine, in no particular order.

Exercise – start the day very early with a 5-kilometer run in thegym.

Work – carry on with a regular routine by working remotely andconducting meetings on Teams and Skype.

Read – buy countless books from Amazon. Lately I've read TheHeaven & Earth Grocery Story by James McBride; The Searcher byTana French; The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex; and The Making ofAnother Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, a novel by Tom Hanks.

Write – while I haven't been able to write fiction, I havewritten occasional journal entries telling what it's like living through a war.And I recently wrote reviews of two short story collections – East Jerusalem Noir and West Jerusalem Noir.

Volunteer – I've joined the civil guard on Neve Ilan, servingshifts at the main gate. While I'm not guarding with a gun, I am stopping carsdriving in, asking the identity of unfamiliar faces, and hopefully providing adeterrent to anyone suspicious coming into my community.

Guard duty at the moshav gate

Binge – Netflix plays a major role in our evenings, and wegenerally watch limited series, an episode every night. Recently we've seen 'Liveto 100, Secrets of the Blue Zone'; 'Wellmania'; and 'Painkiller'. Currentlywe're watching 'All the Light We Cannot See'.

Laugh – Occasionally we'll watch a Stephen Colbert openingmonologue, Saturday Night Live skits on YouTube, or a Taylor Tomlinson stand-upspecial.

Listen to music – at the gym, in the car. Loud music to drown outeverything and quiet music to chill.

Listen to podcasts –True crime, science, Bulgarian history, and aweekly episode of 'Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me!'

Be thankful for family – babysitting when we're needed and aFriday night Shabbat dinner to keep us close to our loved ones.

Be thankful for our home – we were just days away from finishingthe construction of the apartment above our house but now the contractor'sworkers can't cross into Israel. But how can we complain? There are so manyIsraelis who have been evacuated from their homes in the south and from theirhomes in the north. They are staying in hotels all over the country for anindefinite period of time. There are so many who have lost everything; theircommunities have been destroyed. We are thankful that our community is here forus and we have a safe roof over our heads.

Hike/Walk – get out of the house and into nature. On Shabbat Iwalked through unfamiliar Jerusalem neighborhoods and whenever I can, I hikeinto the forests near Neve Ilan.

Sympathize – with the victims, the families, the mourners. Ican't imagine what it's like for them. The funerals. The hostages. Always that– the hostages.

Support – buy blue and white products, including cheese from theBeeri Dairy and vegetables from the kibbutzim near Gaza.

Cheese from the Beeri Dairy

Don't turn on the television - but, how can you not turn on thetelevision? How can you not read the news? How can you not spend hour afterhour doomscrolling? It's hard.

Survive – these are difficult days, but we'll make it. Wesurvived COVID; we'll get past this. This is a war and we will win. We have nochoice.

Related articles:

War Diary: What Terrifies Me More Than Anything Else

War Diary: Day 5

Israel at War. Again.

War Diary - How Do You Cope?

Pictures of the hostages on a sign to buy local Israeli productsThe television news is on. The news is always on. Rockets, sirens. Asoldier's death. Scenes of destruction in Gaza. Scenes of destruction in thekibbutzim. The wounded. Unfathomable terror. The hostages.

Panelists discuss the issues. There are no answers.

Doomscrolling a Facebook news feed. Memes, links to articles.Descriptions of antisemitic marches and attacks on Jews worldwide. Fund-raisingefforts and rallies of support. Tales of the victims. The hostages.

People ask me if I'm OK, but none of us are OK. My son and son-in-laware too old to serve in the army reserves and we don't personally know any ofthe victims, but with rockets flying overhead, and the bombings in Gaza as wellas rocket interceptions over Tel Aviv audible from our home, this is all verypersonal.

So, how do you cope? How can you manage these unmanageable days?Everyone has their own survival guide. This is mine, in no particular order.

Exercise – start the day very early with a 5-kilometer run in thegym.

Work – carry on with a regular routine by working remotely andconducting meetings on Teams and Skype.

Read – buy countless books from Amazon. Lately I've read TheHeaven & Earth Grocery Story by James McBride; The Searcher byTana French; The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex; and The Making ofAnother Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, a novel by Tom Hanks.

Write – while I haven't been able to write fiction, I havewritten occasional journal entries telling what it's like living through a war.And I recently wrote reviews of two short story collections – East Jerusalem Noir and West Jerusalem Noir.

Volunteer – I've joined the civil guard on Neve Ilan, servingshifts at the main gate. While I'm not guarding with a gun, I am stopping carsdriving in, asking the identity of unfamiliar faces, and hopefully providing adeterrent to anyone suspicious coming into my community.

Guard duty at the moshav gate

Binge – Netflix plays a major role in our evenings, and wegenerally watch limited series, an episode every night. Recently we've seen 'Liveto 100, Secrets of the Blue Zone'; 'Wellmania'; and 'Painkiller'. Currentlywe're watching 'All the Light We Cannot See'.

Laugh – Occasionally we'll watch a Stephen Colbert openingmonologue, Saturday Night Live skits on YouTube, or a Taylor Tomlinson stand-upspecial.

Listen to music – at the gym, in the car. Loud music to drown outeverything and quiet music to chill.

Listen to podcasts –True crime, science, Bulgarian history, and aweekly episode of 'Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me!'

Be thankful for family – babysitting when we're needed and aFriday night Shabbat dinner to keep us close to our loved ones.

Be thankful for our home – we were just days away from finishingthe construction of the apartment above our house but now the contractor'sworkers can't cross into Israel. But how can we complain? There are so manyIsraelis who have been evacuated from their homes in the south and from theirhomes in the north. They are staying in hotels all over the country for anindefinite period of time. There are so many who have lost everything; theircommunities have been destroyed. We are thankful that our community is here forus and we have a safe roof over our heads.

Hike/Walk – get out of the house and into nature. On Shabbat Iwalked through unfamiliar Jerusalem neighborhoods and whenever I can, I hikeinto the forests near Neve Ilan.

Sympathize – with the victims, the families, the mourners. Ican't imagine what it's like for them. The funerals. The hostages. Always that– the hostages.

Support – buy blue and white products, including cheese from theBeeri Dairy and vegetables from the kibbutzim near Gaza.

Cheese from the Beeri Dairy

Don't turn on the television - but, how can you not turn on thetelevision? How can you not read the news? How can you not spend hour afterhour doomscrolling? It's hard.

Survive – these are difficult days, but we'll make it. Wesurvived COVID; we'll get past this. This is a war and we will win. We have nochoice.

Related articles:

War Diary: What Terrifies Me More Than Anything Else

War Diary: Day 5

Israel at War. Again.

Review of 'East Jerusalem Noir' - short stories

TheSix Day War in 1967 brought the reunification of the city of Jerusalem asIsrael's capital but the reality on the ground is different, with the city clearlydivided into East and West. Israelis rarely venture into East Jerusalem, its neighborhoodsas foreign as those of a different country.

Israelireaders may be uncomfortable with the short stories of East Jerusalem Noir(Akashic Books, November 2023), for they are tales of house demolitions,separation walls, checkpoints, and destroyed villages. But they are also talesof heavenly faiths that call out to residents to fill the emptiness of theirlives with prayer.

Theprotagonist of the opening story, 'The Ceiling of the City' by Nuzha Abu Ghoshis stopped by soldiers at Damascus Gate and is taken to prison because he doesn'thave his ID. In 'The Scorpion' by Ibrahim Jouhar, a bulldozer disrupts anordinary Jerusalem day, causing a homeowner to cry out "O wasted life, Olost dreams." Nothing is crueler, perhaps, than seeing your dream housetorn to pieces.

Inthe story 'Between The Two Jerusalems' by Osama Alaysa we meet a gentle refugeefrom the destroyed village of Lifta who, despite his Downs syndrome,establishes himself as an unofficial traffic officer. He wanders around Jerusalem'sold walls. The many vehicles in the streets make him feel free. He stepsforward to direct traffic only to be detained by the police as a suspectedterrorist.

Forthe residents of East Jerusalem, ordinary days in an extraordinary existenceinclude waiting for a court decision that will determine the fate of one'shome. In the story 'In an Extraordinary City' by Rahaf Al-Sa'ad, Abu wonders ifthe hopes he'd planted in the hearts of his wife and children had been amirage. Was it unfair to hope for something that couldn't possibly come true?

Possiblythe most heart-rending story in the book is 'Noble Sanctuary' by MuhammadShuraim. We meet 75-year-old Hajja Aisha who, having just arrived from Amman,hopes to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque before her impending heart surgery. Thereis traffic on the roads and long lines at the checkpoints. Security inspectionsand gathering soldiers. Is Hajja's heart strong enough to bear the eruptingviolence and make it to Friday prayers?

Thecollection's editor, Rawya Jarjoura Burbara, says she asked the writers"to portray the city of Jerusalem as they live it, as they feel it, asthey appreciate it, as they fear it, as they want it to be, and as they imagineit in the past, the present, and the future." The result is 13 storiestranslated from Arabic, often painful to read and some with abrupt endings. Thestories tell of the unfulfilled hopes and dreams of East Jerusalem residents,their lives vastly different from those living in the western half of the city.

East Jerusalem Noir of the Akashic Noir Series is published simultaneouslywith West Jerusalem Noir, a companion collection that reflects an imageof the national, religious, and socioeconomic tension in the western half ofthe complicated city of Jerusalem.

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

Related article:

Touring the Dark Side of Tel Aviv

"The Noise Above" - short story

TCHA!-TCHA!-TCHA!-TCHA!-TCHA!

A deafening hammering. A piercing drilling. Incessant,irregular, and irritating, to say the least. It stopped and started, continuedfor several minutes, and then, unexpectedly, there was a lull until it startedup again. It seemed like it would never end. And it was all coming from thefloor above her head.

She couldn’t begin to imagine what was happening upthere. Were they tearing down walls, or building new ones? Were they tiling or wiringor installing or cementing or plastering or who knows what? What she did knowwas that the work was loud, so very loud, and there was dust everywhere.

“Imma, you need to move out,” Shelly insisted. “There’sno way you can stay in your house with all that construction work going onoverhead.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “It won’t go on forever.”

“Are you wearing those earphones I gave you?” Bennyasked her. “Imma, you'll lose your hearing if you don’t take precautions!”

“I can hear just fine,” she replied, although therewere times when she could literally not hear herself think.

“Live somewhere else for the duration,” Shelly said.

“You can stay with me,” Benny said, although she wasn’tsure he was sincere with his invitation.

“I’m not leaving my home. I refuse, even for this! I’llmanage, Benny. I’ll survive, Shelly. After all, it’s an annoyance only part ofthe day.”

Part of the day? It started at seven in the morning andlasted until four in the afternoon. It didn’t help if she turned the radio upto full volume. Occasionally she went outside, walked down the street, visited Esthernext door, but no matter where she went, the noise followed her, ringing in herears. Even at night, when the workers were long gone and their drills andhammers were silent, she could still hear the pounding and the banging in herhead.

TCHA!-TCHA!-TCHA!-TCHA!-TCHA!

“I’ll manage,” she tried to convince herself as she layin her bed. She knew Shelly and Benny had her best interests in mind when theysaid she should be move out for the duration of the building, but she wasstubborn and insisted on staying. Maybe not moving out was a mistake, but shewould never admit it. They may be right, but she refused to be wrong. Still, thoughtsof how the mess of construction was interfering with her daily routine, alongwith the constant ringing in her ears, kept her awake for long hours.

Read the rest of the story on New English Review.