HIP SET

In Fertik’s debut crime novel, a Congolese immigrant in Israel works to solve a murder in his community.

Oscar Orleans prefers to spend his Saturday mornings on Tel Aviv’s Bugrashov Beach, drinking Americanos. Since he arrived as a refugee from the Congo 20 years ago, he’s become the informal ambassador between Israeli law enforcement and the various African refugee communities in Tel Aviv, even as he waits for his own permanent residency application to be processed. On one particular Saturday, Oscar is called to an abandoned building on the waterfront to help his old friend, Israeli police inspector Kobi Sambinsky, identify the body of a murdered Black man: “The corpse looked peaceful except for the bullet wound in the stomach and the other one in the head. He was late teens, maybe twenty, rail skinny and probably more than 190 centimeters if he were laid flat, which he wasn’t.” The deceased turns out to be from South Sudan, and he went by the uncommon name Kinga. In an unusual twist, Oscar learns from a pastor serving the Sudanese community that another young man—also named Kinga—arrived and then quickly disappeared in Tel Aviv some eight years ago. It turns out the deceased Kinga had some sort of dealings with one of the city’s notorious mobsters; when the pastor who passes on this information is savagely beaten, Oscar suspects that plenty more violence is yet to come. As he wades deeper into the case, he’s forced to come to terms with his own relationship to Israel, a country that’s sheltered him but never quite accepted him, and reflect on the hidden lives of non-Jewish immigrants who seek asylum there.

Fertik’s writing is elegant and meticulous, particularly in its attention to specific character details: “Oscar sat at a sidewalk table at La Mer beach bar. On days when he wore his work shoes, which was most days, and especially on days when he wore his dress slacks, socks, and shirt for a meeting with his immigration advocate, he would not sit at the tables in the sand but instead up on the concrete.” It’s a slim novel, and although the story does move along at a good clip, it’s hardly a thriller. Instead, the case unfolds quite gradually, with plenty of time for Oscar to enjoy his beachside Americanos and attend shul (he’s a convert to Judaism). Throughout, the balanced prose and Oscar’s conflicted perspective are enough to keep the reader fully engaged. The protagonist’s attraction to the city and its people comes through clearly, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Readers will feel drawn into the rhythms of Tel Aviv, even as they witness incidents of inequality and discrimination. Over the course of the novel, Fertik delves into questions of cultural inclusion and exclusion in modern Israel. One can easily imagine an entire series of mysteries involving Oscar and Kobi delving deeper into the heart of a contemporary, cosmopolitan Israel.

A captivating procedural that explores the nature of statelessness and justice.