The Red Balcony

November 7, 2022
Wilson (The Hiding Room) illuminates life in Palestine under the British Mandate in this engrossing legal drama. In 1933, Ivor Castle, a well-to-do English Jew and Oxford graduate, arrives in Jerusalem to assist in the defense of two Russian Jews accused of assassinating Zionist leader Haim Arlosoroff. As Ivor helps ready the case, he receives a crash course in the convoluted relationships among the Jews, Arabs, and British who all lay claim to Palestine. At the same time, he becomes involved with two women: Tsiona Kerem, a free-spirited artist from Tel Aviv who might have proof that the two accused men are innocent, and Susannah Green, a Jewish debutante from Baltimore who is touring the Holy Land with her parents. Hanging in the balance is a controversial Zionist plan to negotiate with Hitler for the release of 50,000 German Jews to Palestine. Vivid atmosphere animates Wilson’s story of expatriates, in the manner of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet and Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. With a mix of intrigue, romance, and 1930s realpolitik, the author immerses readers in Ivor’s initial confusion and growing sense of moral clarity. Historical fiction fans are in for a treat. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary.

February 1, 2023
Palestine, 1933. Young English Jewish lawyer Ivor Castle has come to Palestine to serve as assistant to King's Counsel Phineas Baron, who is leading the defense of two Russian Jews accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, the most controversial political figure in Palestine. Newly arrived, Ivor is tasked with interviewing Tsiona, a young woman artist who had seen and sketched the two defendants the day of the murder. Or had she? Ivor finds her frustratingly elusive. No matter, for he has fallen obsessively in love with her. Soon he finds himself plunged into the enigmatic, sometimes murky politics of Palestine, as puzzled by them as the reader occasionally is. It's no surprise that Baron refers to "the miasma of twisted, competing narratives" that distinguish the case. Give Wilson high marks for his treatment of setting; he brings Palestine in the thirties to vivid life and inhabits it with fully realized, multidimensional characters like Ivor and Tsiona. Though more historical novel than mystery, The Red Balcony nevertheless makes for compelling reading for fans of both genres.

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Starred review from January 1, 2023
A young English lawyer confronts moral ambiguity in Palestine under the British Mandate. Set in Palestine in 1933 and based on true events, Wilson's smart, fast-paced novel focuses on the months following the assassination of Haim Arlosoroff, gunned down on a Tel Aviv beach in June 1933 after he negotiates a controversial agreement with Hitler's regime that will ease the international boycott against Nazi Germany in exchange for allowing more Jews to flee the country. Ivor Castle, a recent graduate of Oxford and a Jew himself, but one who feels "more at home among the gentiles in the country of his birth than among the Jews of the Promised Land," is recruited to assist in the defense of two Russians charged with the crime. His work and life quickly become complicated when he embarks on an affair with Tsiona Kerem, a beautiful and enigmatic artist from Jerusalem whose testimony may provide an alibi for his clients. Ivor tries to thrash his way out of an ethical thicket, as the evidence points at one moment to his clients' guilt and at another to the possibility that Arlosoroff's killers may have been Arabs, a result eagerly sought by Charles Gross, a fellow Oxford graduate and supporter of the controversial Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Ivor's position becomes even more perilous when he meets Susannah Green, an attractive young American whose father is working quietly to rescue German Jews. In all his machinations, Ivor also serves as something of a proxy for the complexity of life in a "place of violence and blood--or at least, a place of multiple clashing dreams of belonging." Wilson maintains the suspense of the trial's outcome until his atmospheric story's concluding pages, but there's much more to engage the reader before this mature work reaches its end. Morality and passion collide in a sophisticated legal thriller.

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