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| An image froze in his mind. He didn't know exactly what the boy looked life, but he could see Ofer Sharabi placing his black bad on a bench in a dimly lit, deserted public park and lying down on his back. He's covering his body with a gray sweatshirt--like the one on the girl at the bus stop. He's getting ready to go to sleep. There's not a soul there aside from Ofer. And that's good. He's not in any danger... ~~~ |
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| Pressing his palm down on the metal door handle to Ilana's office was one of those moments in his work that Avraham lived for. One moment he'd be at Tel Aviv Headquarters, and an instant later, when the door closed behind him, he'd be entirely somewhere else--at home... ~~~ |
I see Avi as sensitive, introspective, dedicated to his job, protector of the innocent. He has very strong opinions, based upon his personal gut feelings as opposed to evaluation of the overall case and this leads him sometimes wrong.., maybe... He is able to work well with women and is even to some extent needy to have a female support him in his professional development. I'm not quite sure of the power of his role yet...he has a female who seems to be both mentor and supervisor and there seems to be an underlying personal connection, whether of friendship or more, I think, has to be discovered in the future. However, his supervisor has years of experience and guides, but does little in actually solving the case. He seems to depend on himself for mostly handling all details of cases, perhaps getting lost from the bigger picture, even though he might be assigned the lead for the case...
The Missing File
By. D. A. Mishani
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| Another fifteen minutes or so went by with them sitting there like that, in his small room, face-to-face... Let's go over the main things again. |
Across the desk from him sat a mother. Another mother. She was the third he had seen this shift... All his recent shifts were made up of similar complaints. A week earlier a woman had complained that her mother-in-law had put a curse on her. He was sure that the duty officers at this station were out there stopping people in the street and asking them to come in and file ludicrous reports to make fun of him. He wasn't aware of such complaints being filed on the shifts of the other investigators.
It was 6:10 p.m., and if there had been a window in Inspector Avraham Avraham's office he would have seen that it was starting to get dark outside. He had already decided what to pick up for dinner on the way home, and what to watch on the television while he ate. But first, he had to ease the concerns of the third mother. He stared at the computer screen, waiting for the right moment...
The problem is that if I decide now that your son is missing and that the case requires immediate attention, I am obliged to send out officers to begin looking for him right away. Those are the procedures. And I can tell you from experience that there is a chance we will find him in a situation in which you wouldn't like us to find him. What do I do if he found with a joint in his hand? I won't have much choice, and will have to open a criminal report... He fixed his gaze on her, trying to access the impression his little speech had made. She appeared lost. She wasn't used to making decisions--or insisting. "I don't know if something happened to him," she said. "It's not like him to disappear like this."
And so Avi sent the third mother home to come back the next day... Mrs. Sharibi brought several pictures of Ofer and had also brought his cell phone which she had earlier told him was found in his room--he hadn't taken it with him...And so routine police procedures began...
That was not the last time that Avi met Ze'ev either. In fact, although he didn't see him every time, Ze'ev was keeping close track of the investigation and, in particular, Avi... It didn't take an long to have Avi pinpoint Ze'ev as a "person of Interest..."
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| Ze'ev knew why the police cars were there the moment he saw them parked outside the building. It was a gut feeling, a sharp searing of his conscience, from deep within. He knew, too, that he was ready, but didn't know for what just yet. Who's playing Ze'ev?!!! ~~~ |
But was he involved with Ofer missing? In the meantime, a tip had come in anonymously about Ofer having been spotted...but the caller had referred to him as "body..." A small search was organized and Avi again found that Ze'ev had come to join the search...
The sequel to this novel will be out soon and my review follows this one. I must admit that I'm holding on my opinion of Avi. He is definitely not the macho type that we might see as the primary investigator... In some ways, he reminds me of Alex Delaware, main character in the series I loved by Jonathan Kellerman. Alex had a sidekick and I'm thinking that is what might improve Avi's story since he's usually looking around for somebody with whom he can talk over the case... That seems to be no longer Ilana when she brings in a younger, much more aggressive detective to work the case with him.
He does make touch with a female officer when he flies to Brussels for an officer exchange program...A possible love interest to come in the next book?
While I hold out my personal opinion of Avi, there is no doubt that my primary attraction for the novel is Mishani's outstanding writing. I found myself too sympathetic toward Avi, because on the one hand, he appears to lack the ability to take an overall assessment on his cases. On the other hand, he becomes driven when he senses that somebody is lying to him and, with sufficient but incomplete evidence, he makes a firm plan of action for a particular individual, even if he is wrong.
Mishani specialized in the history of detective fiction and has a routine story he throws into Avi's interviews--but his colleagues don't appreciate it at all! In essence, he talks about the lack of crime in Tel Aviv and thus lack of crime fiction... This is one reader, though, who can't quite decide whether the author's writing is enough to keep readers interested when we have less than complete faith in the main character's ability to do his job... Watch for my review of the sequel! At this point, I think you should try at least one of his books just to have the experience of reading a "Literary scholar specializing in the history of detective literature" and check out how he has put his expertise to use in his Debut fiction series! I believe readers will clearly see how it has resulted in the way he's writing his own fiction now...
GABixlerReviews
Dror lives with his wife and two children in Tel Aviv.
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