The red balcony A novel

Review by Booklist Review

Palestine, 1933. Young English Jewish lawyer Ivor Castle has come to Palestine to serve as assistant to King's Counsel Phineas Baron, who is leading the defense of two Russian Jews accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, the most controversial political figure in Palestine. Newly arrived, Ivor is tasked with interviewing Tsiona, a young woman artist who had seen and sketched the two defendants the day of the murder. Or had she? Ivor finds her frustratingly elusive. No matter, for he has fallen obsessively in love with her. Soon he finds himself plunged into the enigmatic, sometimes murky politics of Palestine, as puzzled by them as the reader occasionally is. It's no surprise that Baron refers to "the miasma of twisted, competing narratives" that distinguish the case. Give Wilson high marks for his treatment of setting; he brings Palestine in the thirties to vivid life and inhabits it with fully realized, multidimensional characters like Ivor and Tsiona. Though more historical novel than mystery, The Red Balcony nevertheless makes for compelling reading for fans of both genres.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Wilson (The Hiding Room) illuminates life in Palestine under the British Mandate in this engrossing legal drama. In 1933, Ivor Castle, a well-to-do English Jew and Oxford graduate, arrives in Jerusalem to assist in the defense of two Russian Jews accused of assassinating Zionist leader Haim Arlosoroff. As Ivor helps ready the case, he receives a crash course in the convoluted relationships among the Jews, Arabs, and British who all lay claim to Palestine. At the same time, he becomes involved with two women: Tsiona Kerem, a free-spirited artist from Tel Aviv who might have proof that the two accused men are innocent, and Susannah Green, a Jewish debutante from Baltimore who is touring the Holy Land with her parents. Hanging in the balance is a controversial Zionist plan to negotiate with Hitler for the release of 50,000 German Jews to Palestine. Vivid atmosphere animates Wilson's story of expatriates, in the manner of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano. With a mix of intrigue, romance, and 1930s realpolitik, the author immerses readers in Ivor's initial confusion and growing sense of moral clarity. Historical fiction fans are in for a treat. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Feb.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A young English lawyer confronts moral ambiguity in Palestine under the British Mandate. Set in Palestine in 1933 and based on true events, Wilson's smart, fast-paced novel focuses on the months following the assassination of Haim Arlosoroff, gunned down on a Tel Aviv beach in June 1933 after he negotiates a controversial agreement with Hitler's regime that will ease the international boycott against Nazi Germany in exchange for allowing more Jews to flee the country. Ivor Castle, a recent graduate of Oxford and a Jew himself, but one who feels "more at home among the gentiles in the country of his birth than among the Jews of the Promised Land," is recruited to assist in the defense of two Russians charged with the crime. His work and life quickly become complicated when he embarks on an affair with Tsiona Kerem, a beautiful and enigmatic artist from Jerusalem whose testimony may provide an alibi for his clients. Ivor tries to thrash his way out of an ethical thicket, as the evidence points at one moment to his clients' guilt and at another to the possibility that Arlosoroff's killers may have been Arabs, a result eagerly sought by Charles Gross, a fellow Oxford graduate and supporter of the controversial Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Ivor's position becomes even more perilous when he meets Susannah Green, an attractive young American whose father is working quietly to rescue German Jews. In all his machinations, Ivor also serves as something of a proxy for the complexity of life in a "place of violence and blood--or at least, a place of multiple clashing dreams of belonging." Wilson maintains the suspense of the trial's outcome until his atmospheric story's concluding pages, but there's much more to engage the reader before this mature work reaches its end. Morality and passion collide in a sophisticated legal thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Jerusalem March 1933 Kohler, the receptionist, eyed the large brown paper package stamped, postmarked, and tied up with string that sat on the front desk between his silver bell and a diminished pile of the local German-language newspaper, the Mitteilungsblatt. He shifted it to the side in order to make room for two additional sets of newspapers, popular items for guests on their way in to breakfast even though the news they carried was always a week old. He had no interest in the bland front page of the London Times, but a photograph of a thin-faced figure with his hair swept back and its accompanying headline in the Frankfurter Zeitung briefly caught his attention: Josef Goebbels had been appointed minister of information and propaganda in Hitler's new government. He switched on the overhead fan and a wisp of smoke fell from the gears. Early morning light filtered through shade and touched the brown and mahogany furniture in the lobby, spinning dust motes off its armchairs. Kohler opened the blinds, returned to his desk, caught the sleeve of his jacket in his hand, and ran it across the polished wood to accomplish an extra shine. The newly admitted light spilled through the front windows and cut sharp white diagonals onto the wall behind him. Kohler banged his hand on the bell and the two Arab boys, Ahmed and Ibrahim, who acted as weekday porters, clattered upstairs from the basement and appeared in the lobby. They looked around in vain for guests to assist and luggage to transport. "Here," Kohler said, handing over the package, "take it up." He muttered some instructions to the boys and then they were gone. Easter was a month away; the great rush of pilgrims, mostly German, some British, was yet to arrive. Soon they would swell the congregation in the Church of the Redeemer, crowd the Via Dolorosa, and fill the Hotel Fast to capacity. Kohler, as Ellrich the manager had requested, was doing what he could to ensure that these tourists of the Holy Spirit received a rousing and congenial welcome upon their arrival. The boys stood behind a balustrade that topped the ornate stone parapet on the second floor. Together they lowered the banner attached to the flagpole, removed the old flag, and replaced it with the new. A stiff breeze blew in from the desert to the south; the sky, shot through now with blue morning light, shimmered over the walls of the Old City. From their vantage point the boys could take in the distant bustle of activity around both the Damascus and Jaffa Gates. They winched the flagpole back into place. Kohler stepped out of the hotel and crossed the cobblestone street, shooing a mongrel dog from his path. There was the Union Jack, and now hanging alongside it was the new German flag with its striking black swastika snapping in the March wind high above a broad swath of the streets of Jerusalem. Kohler observed it with pride. Perhaps, he thought, it might even be visible from his own home where it sat tucked in among a row of stone houses that his grandfather Stefan, a dutifully committed Templar from Ludwigsburg, had helped to build on the Street of Ghosts. Two British soldiers in steel helmets, rifles in hand, approached on Kohler's side of the street. He had an impulse to stop them and point out the new flag, but he held back, and they passed by without looking up Excerpted from The Red Balcony: A Novel by Jonathan Wilson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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