Don't mind me reading too many books about Palestine concurrently, and further confusing myself. While it's difficult to get an unbiased historical account, I am quite enjoying this array of historical fiction.

I'm not sure which of you tagged this as a thriller. It's more of a typical murder mystery where Arlosoroff is murdered, an Arab is paid to confess, and chaos ensues. I was fine with Ivor's account, but the Tsiona subplot bored me.

To me, settler colonialism is always wrong, and the more I read about history, the more names and countries I see time and again. In this case, Britain.

This is a political novel set in Palestine in 1933 during the British Mandate. It’s been marketed as a thriller but I didn’t find it so. It was, however, an interesting story. Ivor Castle, an English lawyer, arrives in Palestine to work with a senior defense counsel in a murder trial. The evidence is sketchy and politics are definitely playing a role.

Interesting historical fiction. Wilson has created good characters and imbued his tale with good atmospherics. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

Initially, I was impressed with the story which situates Palestine in the 1930s and relates an interesting legal drama based, apparently, on the real story of the murder of a man that was involved with negotiating with the German government for the release of a number of German Jews. In Palestine, he becomes reviled as a collaborator because he is willing to negotiate with the Nazi government, and he is shot upon his return to Palestine while he is walking with his wife along a beach. This to me was a fascinating set up: was he a collaborator or was this one case of "by any means necessary" as he was trying to get as many German Jews out of the country as he could? The trial element seemed to promise a really intelligent plot and discussion. Our young Oxford-educated protagonist, Ivor Castle, arrives from England to assist in the trial, and the first few chapters promise that we will begin to see the many sides of the trial and the region through his eyes.

However, the moment that Ivor goes to interview a young artist named Tziona who may have sketched the accused murderers in a cafe the evening of the murder (and thus may provide them with an alibi), the novel begins to falter. After spending a night with Tziona, Ivor Castle quickly turns into a mopy, jealous, obsessed man in love with a beautiful mysterious woman--and unfortunately the author began to get as obsessed with her as our main character is. Eventually it became clear to me that the legal drama was going to take a back seat to the somewhat predictable love story that we have seen all too often: elusive, mysterious woman vs. obsessed, heartsick man. (Sigh.)

That may not be completely fair. Other characters are introduced, and other subplots as well, but for this reader it felt like too little too late. By the time that I finished the book, I found that I cared very little about the outcome. The novel is certainly well written and has some subtlety about the various factions in Palestine at the time, but for this reader, the pacing is slow and uneven, and the story meanders.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC copy.

The Red Balcony (no idea where the title comes from) tells the story of a murder in Palestine in 1933 — a period in which German Jews are attempting to flee from Germany to escape to Palestine. The plot revolves around a British lawyer who is assisting in the defense of the 2 men accused of the murder of a Jewish man. There are many subplots involving the lawyer with an artist, a debutante and her family, the British and their attitudes toward emigrants, etc., all set against the background of Palestine. However, this reader found the story exceptionally dull and uninteresting and written with stilted phraseology leading this reader not to care about the outcome.
I thank NetGalley and Schocken Books for the opportunity to read and review this book in exchange for an honest review.