Published by Melville House, 2010
The very best crime novels sometimes ask the reader to make a lot of unreasonable compromises until the very second when all is finally revealed. A good mystery keeps you in the dark; keeps you guessing throughout. Israeli writers from Etgar Keret to Assaf Gavron have shown an acute understanding of this kind of trust, and of absurdity and suspension of disbelief–three things that are critical to success in this genre–but the country hasn’t added much to the genre, or at least anything that’s been translated into English.
Cut Throat Dog by Israeli playwright, Joshua Sobol, isn’t an especially good crime novel. Sobol’s English debut is packs the world into its 270 pages, and still comes up empty. The prose is monotonous, but I could blame that on the translation process. The big problem is that the story isn’t gripping. Sobol attempts to illuminate an ex-Mossad agent in the midst of a mid-life crisis while he tries to solve a case of possible mistaken identity. The mid-life crisis plot is fitting, as Cut Throat Dog leaves you wondering if you’ve just wasted a good portion of your life reading a book failed to meet its own potential.
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