Stewart O’Nan: City of Secrets, Penguin USA, 9780143108948, 

available in paperback

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"City of Secrets” Stewart O’ Nan takes us back to the early days of a yet nonexistent Israel, 1945 to be precise, when it was still part of the British Mandate.  The 194 pages of this highly atmospheric novel are a masterfully constructed mixture of noir espionage thriller, a love story and a historical recounting of the Jewish underground resistance in Palestine.  A gem of a book, I loved it from start to finish.

Brand is a survivor of the Holocaust, his wife Katya and the rest of his family has perished. For him there is no reason to return to Latvia, with a false identity as Jossi he sets off for Palestine to join the underground movement.  As a car mechanic, he was useful to the Nazis guaranteeing his survival and this profession makes him equally useful to the Haganah cells he joins.  As a taxi driver he encounters Eva, called the widow , a former actress now working as a prostitute gathering useful information for his cell.  He falls in love with her as they start spending more time with each other. Brand is used more frequently as a driver in dangerous missions by their cell leader Ashton and he begins to suspect that Ashton might be setting him up for something even bigger. 

I will not reveal more of this wonderful book. I have become a big fan of O’Nan’s measured prose and his sparse, moody storytelling.