Rejected by his lover and recovering from a near-fatal car crash, Breznitz returns to his police unit, where he is assigned to investigate an unusual murder. An unidentified man is found near Jerusalem, an Arab suspect is apprehended and quickly confesses. Breznitz, however, is not convinced that he is the real killer. The investigation becomes an obsession for him, ultimately altering his life…
The author uses the traditional tools of the detective story — a body, the investigator with an unusual personality and a compulsion to reveal the truth — to investigate themes not normally associated with the genre. Identities, and their absence, are central to the story. This is a disturbing, probing book, unlikely to be forgotten.
Translated by Yael Lotan.
About the Author
 HAIM LAPID was born near Tel Aviv in 1948. He is a social psychologist and teaches Social and Behavioural Psychology. He is also a film critic, and writes film scripts for television and cinema. Breznitz has been translated into German, French and Italian, and has been received enthusiastically by the press in those counties.
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The Critics Praise:
“the reader is spellbound…”
BLOOMSBURY REVIEW
“Breznitz…is an excellent novel of ideas, thrilling and threatening."
Ariana Melamed
“But the question of the murder isn’t what lies at the heart of the book. Haim Lapid has written here an existentialist examination of life: It’s like reading the great Russian novelists.”
HAND HELD CRIME
“The investigation is full of unexpected turns and discoveries, not least of which is the meeting between Breznitz and the Arab suspect… It could easily be taken as an allegory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
YEDIOT AHARONOT
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