"Farewell My Babylon" by Davidy Rosenfeld

As he will tell you without batting an eye or apologizing, Erez Brown is a private detective in Tel Aviv who does the work other private eyes (or “special investigators”) disdain – the cheating spouses, family dramas, petty thefts by employees (and sometimes not-so-petty), and other activities at the lower end of the business – and humanity. It’s a living, and someone has to do it. 

Brown is divorced with two young children, and he’s never quite forgiven his wife for surprising him with it. But, for the sake of the kids, he maintains the peace, and they chare custody.

 

He’s getting a lot of business; marriages and faithfulness are what they used to be, he muses. And then a couple named Rubinstein visit, asking him to find their daughter Lea. She’s missing. In fact, she’s been missing for three years. They’re Orthodox, and Lea, apparently, didn’t want to live the Orthodox life.

 

Brown is not optimistic about his chances for finding her. The girl may be dead or have left the country. But he pursues tenuous leads, all the time managing his growing case load with the help of the administrative assistant and an intern. He finally traces her to an apartment where she’d been living, he’s promptly clobbered over the head with a baseball bat. After recovering, he goes back, more alert this time. And he finds the girl’s body.

 

Davidy Rosenfeld

It should be case closed, and Brown thinks that is closed, for a time. And then Mrs. Rubenstein takes advantage of her husband’s business travel out of the country and returns to Brown’s office. Lea can’t be dead, she tells him; she just talked with her on the phone.

 

Farewell My Babylon is the first in the Erez Brown detective series by Davidy Rosenfeld. It’s a dark story (think “Israeli noir”), eased by occasional flashes of dark humor. It’s also a riveting tale of human passions, no one including your client ever telling the truth, and a society that tolerates too much corruption and brutality.

 

Rosenfeld graduated from Tel Aviv University with a B.S. degree in eastern Philosophy and an M.A. degree in History and Philosophy. Farewell My Babylon is his first book translated into English (by translator Yaron Regev). He’s also published another detective novel, The Dreams That Killed Us, and a children’s book, The Rabbit Who Wanted to be a Tree (both currently available only in Hebrew).