THE CUTTING ROOM

Fired from his job as Jerusalem's chief of investigations after his Gordian resolution of Crimes of the City (1991), Avram Cohen accepts his old friend filmmaker Max Broder's oft-urged invitation to Hollywood—only to find Max dead, an apparent suicide, and The Survivor's Secrets, his film about his escape from Dachau with Cohen and Bernard Levine, pulled from release by the withdrawal of Epica Productions. Bucking the authority of the Beverly Hills cops, Cohen quizzes Levine's daughter Sophie, Epica studio chief Andy Blakely (whom Max had tried to stab in a well-publicized melee), and gangster Davey Bee, among a host of other sharply etched figures; but the crucial clue is in an errant videotape of The Survivor's Secrets, which will lead Cohen—though not until after more deaths and much soul-searching—to another ghostly survivor of Dachau. Deftly plotted, finely detailed, and written with tears and compassion. All of Rosenberg's characters, even his walk-ons, leave an indelible impression.