Book bloggers love Omar Yussef

[Matt Rees]

Since the first of my three Palestinian crime novels was published in early 2007, I haven't been short of terrific reviews in the mainstream media. After all, The New York Times said I'd written "an astonishing debut novel" and every outlet from The Sunday Telegraph to The Sowetan has raved about the books. But I'm always particularly pleased when I get good write-ups on individual book blogs. It makes me see the series is building a grass-roots momentum. So two recent reviews were very pleasing to me. On Joe Barone's Book Blog he writes a review of my latest THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET: "To me, the regional and religious parts--the food, the geography, the buildings, the sacred objects, and the people--were most interesting. I would have read the book for those things alone. I will read more Matt Rees." Then British blogger A Book Every Six Days writes of THE BETHLEHEM MURDERS (the first in my series, which has the title ...: "I always like books which teach one about places as well as entertaining one. This one also had the added advantage of taking the reader through some of the moral dilemmas facing all parties in modern Palestine."