Murder Under the Bridge

The blurb for this completely drew me in and from the first page, I was hooked. Set in Palestine, Murder Under the Bridge isn’t necessarily your run of the mill police procedural but it’s gripping, addictive and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Raphael’s writing drew me in, I felt like I was there with Rania and that just added to the atmosphere built up in the book. Four well deserved stars from purplebookstand.

I was lucky enough to be provided with an advanced copy of this book and voluntarily reviewed it.

Through her Rania, Raphael was able to draw me into her world and to follow each step bit by bit and wonder like her about what was going on, who had done what and why. The kind of crime/mystery I like to follow where I as a reader can build by own theories and then enjoy having them proven right or wrong by the author, all in a setting of personal and political conflict.

I liked reading this and am looking forward to reading the next in the series. I would not say that it is an easy read because the setting is a hard one. Being told through a Palestine perspective you might say it is a bit lopsided in that it shows one side more than the other but then stories are like that, stories, our stories are all subjective to who is telling them. But I do believe that in a situation such as the Palestine-Israel one, or the Israel-Palestine one there are only losers on both sides if a good resolution for both sides is not found, which I sincerely and deeply hope for.

Now that I have read the first book in this series. The second book "Murder under the fig tree" makes more sense.
The story was good but the mystery is just a mystery. What I did find very interesting was learning more about the issues in the West Bank between the Palestinians and the Israelis. How internal politics are always at play as well as the politics between the two.. Which all related via the well developed characters old and new and the story itself. Just like "Murder under the fig tree"

Although a little difficult to get into at the beginning of the story, I loved the different setting, the strong female characters, and the conflicts within the book.