Passover Mysteries

Michael André Bernstein, Conspirators (2004)

In the waning days of the Hapsburg Empire, a beleaguered count fights back against the political assassinations of his kinsman by releasing his spymaster, Jakob Tausk, a young Jew, to investigate the killings, and he becomes ensnarled in the intrigues of a charismatic apocalyptic rabbi.

Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book (2008)

A fictionalized account of the turbulent history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript which has survived into the twentieth century thanks to people of various faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Hanna Heath, a manuscript conservator hired to restore the manuscript in 1996 Sarajevo, finds and pursues clues to crucial moments in the book's history.

Lee Harris, The Passover Murder (1996)

Fifteen years after Iris Grodnik's strange disappearance and murder during a Passover seder, her relatives ask former nun Christine Bennett--now married to a New York City cop--to make a last attempt to discover the truth.

Dara Horn, All Other Nights (2009)

How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, it is a question his commanders have already answered for him -- on Passover, 1862, he is ordered to murder his own uncle in New Orleans, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent, the daughter of a Virginia family friend. But this time, his assignment isn't to murder the spy, but to marry her.

Sharon Kahn, Never Nosh a Matzo Ball (2000)

When a player drops dead during batting practice after dining on a dish of matzo balls, Ruby Rothman must keep her eye on things in and around her small Jewish community to figure out who is behind the recent string of strange events.

Harry Kemelman, Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home (1969)

Somewhere between the Passover service and a plot to unseat part of his congregation, Rabbi David Small finds himself caught up with some very non-kosher characters in a baffling case of murder, marijuana, and militants.

Matt Beynon Rees, The Samaritan's Secret (2009)

After a member of an ancient Samaritan community has been murdered, and the millions of dollars of government money he controlled cannot be located, Omar Yussef is called in to solve the crime and locate the money.

Javier Sierra ; translated by Alberto Manguel, The Secret Supper (2006)

Sent by Pope Alejandro VI to oversee the completion of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" at the beginning of 1497, Dominican inquisitor Fray Agustin Leyre investigates the master artist's omission of key elements and use of symbolic imagery, which suggests that a mysterious message has been coded into the painting.

Debbie Viguié, The Lord is my Shepherd (2010)

As church secretary Cindy Preston prepares for the Easter service, she literally stumbles across a dead body in the sanctuary. A prominent church member has been stabbed to death in the locked church. As whispers and suspicions surround the members of the congregation, Rabbi Jeremiah Silverman, from the Jewish temple next door, helps Cindy search for the truth. As Easter Sunday -- and Passover -- draw near, the pressure mounts when the killer leaves clues that more deaths should be expected. Fighting against time and a serial killer, the rabbi and the church secretary work together, learning more about each other and their faiths as they seek to expose the truth. But what secret is the rabbi hiding?

Ayelet Waldman, The Big Nap (2001)

A former public defender, stay-at-home mom Juliet Applebaum is plunged back into a world of crime when her newborn son's babysitter, a lovely young Chasidic woman, mysteriously vanishes without a trace.

Kenneth Wishnia, The Fifth Servant (2010)

To save his Jewish community in 16th-century Prague during the Inquisition, a young Talmudic scholar has only three days to discover who really killed a Christian girl found in the store of a Jewish shopkeeper during Passover, whom the authorities have brought a blood libel charge against.

Short Stories:

Criminal Kabbalah : an intriguing anthology of Jewish mystery & detective fiction, edited by Lawrence W. Raphael; foreword by Laurie R. King (2001)

This anthology, a sequel to Mystery Midrash (1999), features 12 new crime stories on Jewish themes by some well-known genre authors. Overall, the stories effectively combine Jewish content with the traditional conventions of detective fiction.

Murder is No Mitzvah, edited by Abigail Browning (2004)

A collection of short mysteries is set against a background of varied Jewish occasions and includes Larry Beinhart's "Funny Story," Doug Allyn's "The Christmas Mitzvah," and James Yaffee's "Mom."

Mystery Midrash: an anthology of Jewish mystery & detective fiction, edited by Lawrence W. Raphael (1999)

A collection of crime stories featuring Jewish protagonists, or else Jewish themes. In one, a mother who is an armchair detective solves a murder for her not-so-bright son, a policeman, a second is on the abduction of a rabbi, and in a third a woman is possessed by a spirit.

4/10

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