Murder Under the Bridge

Murder Under the Bridge by Kate Rachael is billed as the first in A Palestine Mystery series. I really wanted to like this book because of the exotic location and the lead character, but after a while, I just wanted something to happen.

Rania is a Palestinian policewoman and she is asked by Captain Mustafa to discover why a Palestinian car has been abandoned on the top of a bridge. The Israelis have closed the road beneath the bridge inconveniencing Palestinians who live in the occupied territory.

As she is investigating below the bridge, she stumbles upon the body of a dead foreign woman. Figuring there must be a relationship between the abandoned car and the woman, she does not want to tell the Israeli police about it, fearing their response.

The book plods through explaining the complex political situation

between the Israelis and the Palestinians and shows how the Palestinians are usually treated unfairly by the army. Page after page, I kept waiting for something to develop. The side story of the American freelance documentary maker filming activities pretty much led nowhere for long periods.

The smattering of Arabic and Hebrew along with the English translations was disconcerting for me and made reading choppy and distracting. I realize this was done for authenticity, but I could have done with less of it.

Click here for other books by Kate Jessica Raphael.