MattRees.net

Long journalistic nonfiction and short fiction for download as ebooks for Kindle.

PSYCHOBIBI
Who is Israel’s Prime Minister and Why Does He Want to Fail?

Read a free chapter from the shocking, hilarious, innovative new ebook from D4.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the man often portrayed as an extremist, is really just locked in a deep psychological battle with the ghosts of his tough father and golden brother. The result: Bibi’s driven to succeed, so long as he can always get it wrong in the end. Confused? You won’t be. Not after you meet Psychobibi. Hard-hitting and irreverent, incisive and hardboiled, D4 eviscerates the myth behind the man they love to hate. Get the UK version. Buy the US edition.

THE MURDER OF YASSER ARAFAT: Polonium Politics in Palestine

My alternative news venture DeltaFourth reveals for the first time the murderous story behind the death of the historic, controversial leader of the Palestinians. A conspiracy that went right to his inner circle. Read a sample chapter from The Murder of Yasser Arafat.

Get the US version. Get the UK version.

Click on the player below to listen to a short promo about The Murder of Yasser Arafat.

The Man Who Went Out at Night

A supernatural short story set in the Welsh mining town where my Dad grew up and where I spent much of my childhood. In the valley, the people stay in their houses by night, terrified of the one figure who ventures out in the dark: The Man Who Went Out at Night. Drawn from his home to sleep with an older woman, Tommy Williams confronts The Man. The meeting leads to murder and a grisly conclusion. But perhaps it also gives Tommy a chance to be free of the fear felt by the people of the valley.Get the U.S. version.Get the UK version.

Lazarus’s Brush

As a taster for A NAME IN BLOOD, my historical crime novel about the mysterious end of the great Italian artist Caravaggio, I offer the short story “Lazarus’s Brush.” The download also includes a sample from the novel and a personal essay about how I came to write A NAME IN BLOOD. In “Lazarus’s Brush,” Caravaggio flees to Sicily with a price on his head. Commissioned to paint the raising of Lazarus, he learns about his fears of the violence that stalks him. But the story also charts a profound change in his artistic technique. Download the US version. Get the UK edition.

The Sweetest Things

A short story set in Amman, Jordan, during the Arab Spring. Tom Swallow, a Western journalist, befriends a wealthy sweet-seller named Said. He grows close to Said and his lover, a poor taxi driver named Nizar, as he covers the anti-government riots of the Arab Spring. He observes their growing conflict until its shocking conclusion. The story draws on my many years reporting and, for a while, living in the Jordanian capital, which finds itself at the seething center of the Mideast’s many conflicts. Download the US edition. Get the UK version. Only $.099 (77p).

Damascus Trance

Fiction with characters from my award-winning Palestine Quartet of crime novels. Omar Yussef is in Damascus for a university reunion. But the Palestinian sleuth is caught up in the violent government crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, and also faces an old nemesis who’s now a senior figure in the state’s secret police. This short story is an immediate response to events of the ‘Arab Spring’ in Syria. Download the US edition. Get the UK edition. Only 99 cents!

The Dark Refuge: Israel’s Scandalous Neglect of its Mentally Ill Holocaust Survivors

I investigate the neglect of mentally ill Holocaust survivors that resulted from corruption, politics, and shame. I tell the story of how three young psychiatrists changed the way an entire nation viewed these forgotten victims of the Nazis. Download in the US. Get the UK edition.
 

Kissing the Dead: The Revenge of a Betrayed Hamas Leader

I spent months in Gaza tracking the story of Imad Akel, a Hamas military chief. Akel’s brother was killed by Palestinian police. Imad’s vengeance prefigured the civil war that later split his people and still divides them. This is his dramatic story. Download in the US. Get the UK edition.

Matatya’s Cafe: The Israeli Musicians Who Brought East and West Together

The story of two young Israeli musicians who fought to bring the musical style of their family roots in the Arab world into the Israeli mainstream. Based on years of deep research into Israeli culture, I examine the way “Mizrahi” Jewish identity has changed and the role it will play in Israel’s future. Download in the US. Get the UK edition.

Heroic Scum: How the PLO’s Old Campaigners Were Betrayed by Peace

Old PLO fighters thought the peace agreements with Israel had put an end to their participation in the dirty games of espionage and terrorism. The violence and corruption of the regime in the West Bank and Gaza left them bitter and disillusion…and ready to spill their secrets to me. Download in the US. Get the UK edition.

The Painter and the Prophet: Two Men Who Paid a Price for Loving the Land

I grew close to Avraham Pesso and Dubak Weinstock. One was a painter, a man of left-wing views who vowed to make a stand against Israel’s West Bank settlements and political violence. The other was a ranger, a pioneer among the settlers, who wandered the desert after his son’s terrorist murder until he found a way to reach across the political divide and touch men like Pesso. Download in the US. Get the UK edition.