Nili Asya, “The Odsky case”, Two, 284 p.
Liora Degani is a pretty normal girl. Her intelligence is reasonable, not lower than average but not much higher than it either. Her humor is fine, she is not Groucho Marx but neither is Ora Namir, it was said. It can be assumed that she is not stunning in her beauty, but she is also not dazzling in her ugliness. Her musical taste is very eclectic. Her personality? A bit (a lot) of digging, mainly in connection with the promotion that was promised to her and was taken from her, but if you were worried that there is a stinking section of career inhibition for women, you will be happy to hear that another woman was promoted in her place, or at her expense, as Liora is sure, if we return to the matter of personality; She is convinced that she has been “betrayed”, the root in the GAD repeats itself over and over again when apparently everyone, except her, is quite clear that there was no terrible betrayal here, and between us, even if there was, who cares. In this case, even if Liora is paranoid that she is really being pursued, So they will be chased.
This is one of the problems of “The Odsky Case”, the second book in the detective stories of the detective (and not SNA as she dreamed) by Liora Degani. Things happen in it, but they could just as well not happen. Around, that is, somewhere in the real world, the climatic inferno is raging of the summer, “operations” (the washed-up word for wars) are exploding in the background, and the mind simply demands a successful distraction, and receives it here only partially. I haven’t read the first book, “The Aya Case”. From the references to that case in “The Odsky Case” it appears that she successfully handled the kidnapping of a girl, and therefore thought that the promotion was in her pocket. Resentful, whiny and grumpy, Liora investigates a new case, which begins with the body of a folded woman in a suitcase and ended up in severe disappointment.
I really wanted to like this book, and there is a lot to like about it. Neely Asia’s writing is fluid and pleasant (with linguistic brilliance such as “to freeze the things” and a graceful and refreshing insistence on foreign words such as dead end) her intentions are clearly good (we will dwell on them shortly) and the lack of local detectives is no secret. Any addition to the meager arena is welcome. But Instead of loving, I found myself angry and sad. Angry at Asia, who can do more and even much more, that’s clear, and maybe also at the fine publishing house that didn’t press more, and promised in its publications things that cannot be fulfilled (“The toughest and most humane Israeli detective.” Really? ) and sad about the miss.
Tal ben Harosh from “Manaich”, whose rank (commander) is inferior to that of Liora, is a much more layered character. Tough at the level of steel armor, otherwise she won’t survive in a world of men who want to cut her down and divide her, and she won’t be able to deal with the horrors that work invites her to on a daily basis. Her bloody humanity could be seen and experienced in the second season, when an entire country accompanied with pain and astonishment the assassination attempt on her life and its tragic results.
Ben Harosh, even without the huge bonus of the actress Liraz Hammi who plays her beautifully, is excellently written. She is smarter than most of the people who surround her, without making an issue of it, she speaks little, but every word she says makes a mark, including perfect punch lines (about a criminal who escaped to Uman: “He’s right, only God can help him”), she has a world Internally defined and reasoned and she is interesting. Liora Degani, on the other hand, is more of a sketch of a character than a real character. Not nice to her mother (rightly or not), not particularly nice in general, likes spicy in her falafel, can live on Beasley Grill and sleeps with her boss, which is mainly characterized by the volume of his muscles. This command, by the way, behaves like an 11-year-old boy at a significant moment in their relationship (something related to her ex, about which we know even less than we know about the command), which leads to the question: does Liora Degani like them with developed muscles and a structure My 11-year-old mind, or maybe Asia is trying to tell us that all men are basically 11. Again, either way, it doesn’t really matter.
The television example is not accidental. In a world where Netflix and the other streaming services are the main content providers, it is forbidden to overlap and fall asleep on the watch. For every story they sell to billions of viewers, the written novel must offer a better story, which cannot (yet) be found at the click of a remote. And after the character of a detective like Saga Noren from “The Bridge” appeared in our lives (severe social disorder on the autistic spectrum, childhood of horror movies, inability to lie, and speaking of betrayal – when Saga betrays the only friend she has in the world, according to her, it’s a shocking drama and not just suspicions Petty), it’s simply impossible to give the reader such a “normal” detective like Liora Degani, brighter than paleness, because it immediately raises the question “on which desert island have you been hiding for the last ten years?”. It’s like Jerry Seinfeld once asked the Chinese nation: “Why do you keep offering us chopsticks? After all, we’ve already seen that they invented the cutlery.” Borrowing from something Liora says, she is a little confused if she thinks that they are playing around here. It’s a jungle out there.
“The Odessa Case” (if there’s a joking reference to Frederic Forsyth’s “Odessa Case”, so be it) is as predictable as the music playlist that Asya issues, via Liora’s radio. Tierz Four Pierz, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin. Even when Liora bothers to point out that they are playing now A less famous song by Pink Floyd, it’s still a song from their most famous and most radiophonic album, and it’s a lazy and almost outrageous choice. At least it has a good taste in detective books (Henning Menkel), although not particularly original either.
Asia’s good intentions become clear as soon as she handles the story of women in prostitution. She did research for the purpose of writing and was helped, among other things, by the time article by Vared Lee, who for years has been leading an important and heroic public struggle for women in prostitution. Service, when both the “bad guys” are clichéd (why is one of the suspects especially fat? Like that. And why is the footballer a bum? Why not?) and the investigators. The carelessness in the design of the characters is shared equally between all of them. Why is Liora Dagni chronically single and a pretty heavy smoker? Because that’s the first cliché In the clichés guide to building a detective character. Liora Dagny is a bit over her head, thinking that her impulsiveness will kill her one day. Or her curiosity. But she forgot another option. Sometimes your banality can kill you, and it’s much deadlier.