MattRees.net

Adam Lebor, a superb thriller-writer in his own right, picks some top summer thriller reads in the Financial Times this week (where there’s also a big profile of Lee Child). Adam very kindly includes one of my Omar Yussef mysteries, The Saladin Murders (US title: A Grave in Gaza). Here’s what he writes: There are [...]

You know the reputation. “Swiss” isn’t a nationality. It’s really an adjective meaning highly organized and perhaps even a little too punctilious. That’s a myth. The place is just like the Middle East… (Look, I write fiction, but I may be onto something. Read on.) On my recent reading tour, I stopped in Basel as [...]

When my second novel A GRAVE IN GAZA was being translated into German, I received an email from my translator. He had a number of penetrating questions about certain phrases I’d used in the book. He also happened to be the only translator who asked me a question about any of my books (and my [...]

The first rock concert I ever attended was a performance by Canada’s greatest rockers Rush. I’ve loved Canadians ever since. In the London (Ontario) Free Press recently, Joan Barfoot gave me another reason to adore them. She gives a terrific review to the second of my Palestinian crime novels A GRAVE IN GAZA (UK title [...]

Robert Rees (no relation) writes about my books in this week’s edition of The Forward. Admirably Rob read all three of the books before passing judgment, and a good review it is (as well as an interview, because we spoke for some time on Rob’s recent visit to Jerusalem). “Rees has created an award-winning crime [...]

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is organizing donations of books to libraries and schools in the Gaza Strip. I’m delighted to learn that my Palestinian crime novels are included on the list, which I should add includes works by many of my favorite Arab and Muslim writers (I’m a big fan of Tariq [...]

My second Palestinian crime novel A Grave in Gaza (UK title: The Saladin Murders) is just now published in Holland. The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant asked me to contribute a list of my five favorite books, or at least those which’ve had the biggest impact on me as a writer. Here’s what I wrote: Let [...]

The video blog Watch the Video features the clip I made for the second of my Palestinian crime novels A Grave in Gaza (UK title: The Saladin Murders). The rest of my videos feature on my Youtube channel. Many writers make promotional videos for their books these days, as you’ll see from the Watch the [...]

Much as I love Nordic crime fiction, the Europewide megaseller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson made me want to throw knives like the Swedish chef on The Muppet Show. Why? Two reasons. First, the minor reason. Written by a (tragically deceased) Swedish journalist, the book is entirely in the style of [...]

America, the National Catholic weekly, includes a great review of The Samaritan’s Secret, the third of my Palestinian crime novels, this week. “Rees masterfully concocts another claustrophobic tale from the occupied territories that takes us deep into the Palestinian experience even as it entertains,” writes Claire Schaeffer-Duffy. She also calls my detective Omar Yussef “endearingly [...]