Lone Wolf in Jerusalem

Lone Wolf in Jerusalem
By: Ehud Diskin

I guess I was pretty bored with it.

It had a lot of potential- Jersualem post-WWII, espionage, Jack Reacher 'I-only-work-alone-to-get-my-vengeance' assassin vibe, underground rebel organizations, side love story. A lot of great elements that just didn't come together for me.

David is the "lone wolf" in Jerusalem, killing British officers, seeking to help Jews be able to settle there as their own nation. The first half of the book is peppered with David's memories of his partisan fighting during the war- always (annoyingly) preceded with a statement like "it brought back memories, etc." I prefer when writers separate past/present chapters by simply starting a new chapter labeled with the appropriate year. But that isn't my main issue with this book.

My main problem and source of boredom was in the mundane details and almost journalesque writing. It read like a day-to-day account of everything that happened each day for David. Sometimes two or three days worth of activities with no real movement in plot. I kept waiting to get to the 'ultimate mission' or main problem that he would have to solve- waiting to see where it all was leading. But there is no overarching mission. It's just a bunch of little missions that all happen really fast and without issue.

Nothing goes wrong for David- he does and says everything right. Isn't part of creating a good story to have a major conflict or setback the character has to overcome, even better if they risk their life or other lives are at risk? I didn't sense the danger or feel the tension, wondering if it was going to work out. A lot of opportunities to add in a twist- i.e. I thought for sure the therapist he started seeing was going to turn into an informant that rats him out, or his friend Alec actually came back to infiltrate the rebels as an informant, etc- and all the opportunities were missed. My suspicions were never even questions in the story. So many of the details and information were political actions or actions among the hard-to-keep-straight rebel groups that seemed irrelevant to the story or just plain boring.

I kept asking- will I need to remember this later, was this supposed to be a significant bit of information I just learned? No to both. Real potential never actualized.

Apparently this story was translated from Hebrew and is a bestseller in Israel. I suppose people in Israel have more personal ties to this story and a lot of things that held me up weren't confusing or boring to them because in a way it's their story too. And I respect that. In that case, I might not be the target audience.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway over a year ago and am just now getting to it. I think the title/cover and the fact that it was a kindle version just made it unappealing to start. So it's possible that also tainted my reading of it.

If you are interested in the historical elements of post-WWII Jersualem, you might enjoy this book. If you want a hard-hitting, pulsing, Mission Impossible story, better pass on it.