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I’m an award-winning British
crime novelist. Major authors
have compared my writing with
the work of Graham Greene, John
Le Carre, Georges Simenon and
Henning Mankell. The French
magazine L’Express called me
“the Dashiell Hammett of
Palestine.”
WHERE: I live in Jerusalem. I
came here in 1996. For love.
Then we divorced. But the place
took hold. Not for the violence
and the excitement that
sometimes surrounds it, but
because I saw people in extreme
situations. Through the emotions
they experienced, I came to
understand myself.
BEFORE THE WRITING: There was
never really a time before I
wrote. I’ve been at it since I
was seven (a poem about a tree,
on the classroom wall with a
gold star beside it.) But I
arrived in the Middle East as a
journalist with only a couple of
published short stories to my
name. First I wrote for The
Scotsman, then Newsweek, and
from 2000 until 2006 as Time
Magazine’s Jerusalem bureau
chief. I won some awards for
covering the intifada. Yasser
Arafat once tried to have me
arrested, but I eluded him and
decided to focus on fiction. I’d
learned so much about the
Palestinians – and about life –
that didn’t fit into the limited
world of journalism. So I wrote
my Palestinian crime novels.
BEFORE JERUSALEM: I was born
in Newport, Wales, in 1967.
That’s my mother’s hometown; my
father’s from Maesteg in the
Llynfi valley. We moved around,
to Cardiff and Croydon, then I
studied English at Wadham
College, Oxford University with
Terry Eagleton as my tutor.
Contemporaries may remember me
as the fellow with bleached
blonde hair at the bar of the
King’s Arms in the company of
the Irish porters from All Souls
College. I did an MA at the
University of Maryland and lived
in New York for five years
before I hit the Middle East.
WHERE THE BOOKS CAME FROM: I
wrote a nonfiction account of
Israeli and Palestinian society
called Cain's Field: Faith,
Fratricide, and Fear in the
Middle East in 2004 (Free
Press). I’m proud of it, because
it really gets to the heart of
the conflict here – it isn’t one
of those notebook-dump foreign
correspondent books.
I was looking for my next
project and came up with the
idea for Omar Yussef, my
Palestinian sleuth, while
chatting with my wife in our
favorite hotel, the Ponte Sisto
in the Campo de’Fiori in Rome. I
realized I had become friends
with many colorful Palestinians
who’d given me insights into the
dark side of their society. Like
the former Mister Palestine (he
dead-lifts 900 pounds), a
one-time bodyguard to Yasser
Arafat (skilled in torture), and
a delightful fellow who was a
hitman for Arafat during the
1980s. To tell the true-life
stories I’d amassed over a
decade, I decided to channel the
reporting into a crime series.
After all, Palestine’s reality
is no romance novel.
THE NOVELS: The first novel,
The Collaborator of Bethlehem
(UK title The Bethlehem
Murders), was published in
February 2007 by Soho Press. In
the UK it won the prestigious
Crime Writers Association John
Creasey Dagger in 2008, and was
nominated in the US for the
Barry First Novel Award, the
Macavity First Mystery Award,
and the Quill Best Mystery
Award. In France it’s been
shortlisted for the Prix des
Lecteurs. New York Times
reviewer Marilyn Stasio called
it “an astonishing first novel.”
It was named one of the Top 10
Mysteries of the Year by
Booklist and, in the UK Sir
David Hare made it his Book of
the Year in The Guardian.
Colin Dexter, author of the
Inspector Morse novels, called
Omar Yussef “a splendid
creation.” Omar was called
“Philip Marlowe fed on hummus”
by one reviewer and “Yasser
Arafat meets Miss Marple” by
another.
The second book in the
series, A Grave in Gaza,
appeared in February 2008 (and
at the same time under the title
The Saladin Murders in the UK).
The Bookseller calls it “a
cracking, atmospheric read.” I
put in elements of the plot
relating to British military
cemeteries in Gaza in homage to
my two great uncles, who rode
through there with the Imperial
Camel Corps in 1917. One of
them, Uncle Dai Beynon, was
still around when I was a boy,
and I was named after him.
The third book in the series,
The Samaritan’s Secret, was
published in February 2009. The
New York Times said it was
“provocative” and it had great
reviews in places I’d not have
expected – The Sowetan, the
newspaper of that S. African
township, for example.
In THE
FOURTH ASSASSIN, the fourth
book in the series, Omar
visits the
famous
Palestinian town of
Brooklyn, New York (there
really is a growing
community there in Bay
Ridge), and finds a dead
body in his son’s bed…
The New York Times calls it
"engrossing" and London's
Sunday Times says it
cements Omar's reputation as
"one of the most beguiling
of current
sleuths."
AROUND THE WORLD: My Omar
Yussef Mystery series has been
sold to leading publishers in 23
countries: the U.S., France,
Italy, Britain, Poland, Spain,
Germany, Holland, Israel,
Portugal, Brazil, Norway,
Denmark, the Czech Republic,
Romania, Sweden, Iceland, Chile,
Venezuela, Japan, Indonesia,
Turkey and
Greece.
REACH ME AT:
matt@mattbeynonrees.com
