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Amazon.com Review

Necessary Evil and Necessary Hypocrisy: An Essay by Avner Mandelman

Necessary evil is a cost of civilized life. This is a theme that runs through much of my work, since all societies have dirty jobs that must be done, if society is to survive. But what if some truly necessary jobs--secret assassinations, blackmailing of spies’ kin, physical interrogations--are also immoral? So immoral that society cannot acknowledge their existence even to itself? Who shall do those jobs, and what should happen to the doers? This is one of the most incendiary topics an author can choose, because it forces his readers to confront their own hypocrisy. It’s also the topic

I still remember the electric shock I felt as I encountered George Smiley for the first time, when I was still living in Israel in the 1960s. Here, finally, was reality as I witnessed it daily, both in war and in life constantly shadowed by war. No other words I’d read spoke of this terrible dilemma more eloquently and disturbingly. It was the part of life essentially unfit for print. Because I had met many Smileys, I instantly knew that this is what I had always wanted to write about but never knew it was allowed. Le Carré, however, did not shy away from the question of necessary evil, and his novels thereby transcend genre spy fiction. He succeeds, I believe, because of two virtues: First, of course, is his immense talent. But second, and not least, is his enormous sympathy both for his protagonist and for the reader.

In le Carré novels, George Smiley and his ilk are those who do the morally dirty jobs on which we all depend. From Smiley’s first appearance in

This, to me, is the essence of le Carré's Smiley, a modern shadow warrior "possessing the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin" (

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Sharp, biting prose distinguishes this first novel from Israeli author Mandelman (Talking to the Enemy, a story collection). In 1977, David Starkman returns from selfimposed exile in Canada to his native Israel after learning of the murder of his warhero father, Isser, the owner of a shoe shore. The killer stabbed Isser in the heart with one of Isser's own knives, then mutilated his body. Isser's will includes an unusual provision--that within 45 days, a controversial play he'd written, The Debba, whose title refers to "an enigmatic Arab hyena that can walk like a man" and which had only been performed once, three decades earlier, be staged. David, who once belonged to an elite Israeli army unit responsible for carrying out targeted assassinations in "times of non-war," decides to stick around to fulfill his father's request, despite opposition from those who believe the play is subversive. The author deftly blends a murder mystery with a nuanced examination of the intransigent Israeli-Arab conflict.
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