Saul Burg

Since its founding, terrorist attacks have been a harsh feature of daily life in Israel. In one of the earliest in 1954, the Scorpion Pass Massacre, fedayeen from Gaza halted a solitary bus in the Negev Desert and killed most of the occupants. In de Hoog’s new novel, Saul Burg: A Man of Many Parts, in which the global fight against terrorism plays a central role, his fictionalized description of this attack leaves a single survivor, an 8 year old boy - Saul Burg. Brutally orphaned, he is placed with a German kibbutz in Galilee where, as he matures, he develops an enduring contempt for terrorists. Thus begins a lifetime devoted to combating the scourge. Outwardly, Saul Burg is austere and tough as nails. His inner life is modeled on his father’s who had a love of music and literature. And his life story is exciting and wide-ranging. Authoritative snippets of its historical background (the origins of European antisemitism; Israel’s wars) deepen the narrative. Protagonists leisurely discuss classical literature and music. There are colourful descriptions of winetasting events. Even of treks in high mountains. His career is unorthodox: ace Israeli special forces operative, Mossad hit man, accomplished spy, spy master. Courtesy of an interventionist German ambassador in Tel Aviv, he transitions to Germany to join, first the German spy agency, then after 9/11 the Chancellor’s Office in Berlin. There, as a bureaucrat, he manages Germany’s contribution to the global war on terror. So how, after retirement in Berlin, does he resurface as a senior UN mandarin responsible for coordinating the humanitarian work of UN agencies in failed states? Enter Blake Crawford, a smart, young, tech-savvy Canadian who shows up in Geneva as Saul Burg’s new assistant. De Hoog has organised the novel with two interwoven time lines. There is Saul Burg’s journey over many decades as a foe of terrorists and terrorism enablers. Alternating with it is Blake’s riveting first person account of looking for an answer to the question: Who is this tough, reclusive man I’m working for? Blake is good at finding things on line, but he discovers no imaginable records of Saul Burg’s background exist. As if an existence has been stripped of data. This feeds Blake’s determination. The way this plays out in the novel is that half of the reading experience sheds light on Saul Burg’s exotic career, while the other half follows Blake’s quest to find out what the reader is getting to know. De Hoog structures this dynamic with considerable skill and to good effect. The two time lines converge in an unexpected denouement that unfolds on ice fields high up in India’s Himalayas. The book tag is ‘spy action’, but it’s more in the sense that it has fine literary qualities. Many characters contribute to the reading pleasure. They all have flamboyant and well-developed personalities. The historical backdrop is colourful painted. There is as much philosophy in the novel as action. Are there a flaws? For some who like bang and boom spy thrillers, the steady supply of historical what-ifs, the insights into great literature, music and wine, entertaining crosstalk and repartee, may be a touch too cerebral. But for those who like good stories with a plot that snakes forward into constantly unknown directions, with lively characters and lovely descriptions of out of the way places, this novel hits the mark. It so happens to be a fine novel, just with a few spies in it.