The Saturday Morning Murder (Michael Ohayon, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Jun 17, 2021 Julie Griffin added it

What would Freud make of the modern insatiable interest in murder mysteries?
The Saturday Morning Murder takes us into the rarefied and highly selective realm of psychoanalysts, those who study beyond medicine and psychiatry to specialize in the classic couch analysis.
The Institute is a building somewhere in Jerusalem where these analysts are accepted as candidates, train and treat patients under supervision, and undergo mandatory analysis themselves until, years later, they are accepted as full What would Freud make of the modern insatiable interest in murder mysteries?
The Saturday Morning Murder takes us into the rarefied and highly selective realm of psychoanalysts, those who study beyond medicine and psychiatry to specialize in the classic couch analysis.
The Institute is a building somewhere in Jerusalem where these analysts are accepted as candidates, train and treat patients under supervision, and undergo mandatory analysis themselves until, years later, they are accepted as full members themselves. On this Saturday morning, candidate Gold arrives early to set up chairs and coffee for a noon lecture by one of the Institute's leading leaders, Dr. Eva Neidorf. Instead of a quiet, busy morning setting up, however, he is traumatized by the sight of the doctor herself shot and propped up in a chair.
The ensuing chaos and suspicion stirs up this little isolated community. The lead detective, Michael Ohayon, is at first bemused by all the structure and strictures, but begrudgingly comes to admiration and affection for the 80-year old leader of the Institute, Ernst Hildesheimer, as he aids the investigation and guides Ohayon through the world of specialized psychiatry. Was the doctor meeting a patient? A candidate who was failing the process? A simple robbery? Paths lead down crooked paths to dead ends, of course. Some of the staff disliked her, but was that enough to result in murder? Was it the colleague who differed on her rigorous professional standards? The police team follow several suspects and discover that her lecture intended for that day was the only thing missing, along with a list of her patients. They step around confidentiality and delve deeper, and think it's solved when they discover the identity of the last unknown patient, who has good reason to not want his therapy to come to light, but other events occur that bring the final answer.
In addition to explaining many concepts of analysis and the practicalities of psychiatric practice, Gur, a literature professor in Israel, lays open the larger landscape of Jerusalem and it's many neighborhoods and cultures. She describes aspects of Israeli life and doesn't shy from the darker aspects. A West Bank laborer who discovers a discarded pistol goes through convoluted steps with a patient to remove himself, as he knows he will immediately be arrested due to who he is. Ohayon, who is himself queasy about secret interviews in a safe house, is equated with the Nazis by a neighbor. Politics also come into play.
If you need fast-paced plots, this is not the series for you. This first one is paced much like analysis, with almost snail's pacing with gold at the beginning, and remaining thoughtful and focused on the intellectual process of analysis and demonstrating the very similar steps between analysis and detection and investigation. I enjoyed the layers and the pace that others might find slow. This is the first of six. Recommend if you like these kinds of slow, meandering, and thought-based procedurals. ...more

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