The Butcher’s Theater

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The Butcher’s Theater (Magill Book Reviews)

Kellerman has sacrificed some of the graceful prose of his previous novels for a hard-hitting portrayal of an evil killer in the holiest of cities, Jerusalem. The result is riveting. Even the careful description of police procedure, which in the hands of a lesser writer can bog down a plot, advances the action in unexpected ways. Through it the reader comes to understand the personalities of Sharavi’s team, three Jews of diverse origins, one Arab Christian, and Sharavi himself. All the men are shaped by the constant need for vigilance against terrorists, but only once before have they had to deal with a serial killer. Moreover, the labyrinthine workings of the Israeli bureaucracy conspire almost from the beginning to impede Sharavi’s case.

The dogged Israeli, however, will not quit. He is a survivor of the 1967 War and the Butcher’s Theater, a violent area around Jerusalem which has cost many lives. The serial killer, nicknamed “the Butcher,” has turned Jerusalem into his own kind of theater, and has become, to the more superstitious members of the local populace, a demon larger than life. Mid-way through the investigation an anonymous letter is received by a reporter that casts the murders in a religious and ethnic light, and the factions ignite. Sharavi’s case takes on new significance: He must catch the serial killer before his beloved city again becomes a battleground.

An entire United Nations hospital staff, a Christian monk who wants to become a Jew, a child molester, even members of the victims’ own families-- all become suspects in this seemingly impossible case. Aided by a veteran Los Angeles policeman on holiday, however, Sharavi manages to make some improbable pieces fit. He comes to realize that the killer has a purpose for killing, a terrible master plan. He has assumed all along, and correctly, that the killer chooses a particular kind of victim. What he does not realize--until it is almost too late--is that the killer is willing to make a special exception-- especially for Sharavi.

Psychiatrist Kellerman has outdone himself with this novel. He takes the reader expertly inside the murderer’s demented mind so that he understands, firsthand, exactly why he is killing and mutilating his victims. He has also created an engaging hero in Sharavi; no idealistic superman, Sharavi is all too aware of his limitations. Both men are real--one very evil and one good, but both brilliant--and their final confrontation is dynamite. This is one of the best to date in the police procedural/thriller genre. Do not miss it.