Cover image of "The Human Scale," a West Bank murder mystery

Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright is equally adept at both fiction and nonfiction, for which he won the prize. He has explored the history of Al Qaeda and 9/11, the so-called “Church” of Scientology, and other themes in 11 deeply researched factual accounts published from 1979 to 2021. Later (2000-25), he has written four novels, plumbing the dynamics of a pandemic, the corruption in Texas politics, and Panama under dictator Manuel Noriega. Now comes The Human Scale, a searing examination of Israeli-Palestinian relations in the days leading up to Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. It’s a West Bank murder mystery, and a brilliant one. But the novel transcends the genre with its penetrating dive into the mindset of two irreconcilable peoples.

A half-Palestinian FBI agent and a ruthless Israeli hardliner investigate

The novel opens explosively with the detonation of a car bomb that murders several members of an FBI team operating in Jordan. One Special Agent Tony Malik survives the event, but he spends months recuperating and regaining most of his cognitive functions. Still ailing, the half-Palestinian, half-Irish agent opts to travel for the first time to Palestine to attend a niece’s wedding and see the village where his father grew up. There, in Hebron, the region is roiled when the liberal police chief of the city turns up dead, with his head missing. But neither Hamas nor any other Arab extremist group claims responsibility. Gradually, Tony enters into an on-again, off-again collaboration with Yossi ben Gal, the most senior police investigator in Hebron. Together, the two repeatedly risk their lives to follow the meager trail of clues that may lead them to identify the murderers.

The Human Scale by Lawrence Wright (2025) 510 pages ★★★★★

Aerial photo of an Israeli settlement like the one in this West Bank murder mystery
An Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Image: Middle East Eye

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict viewed up close

It quickly becomes clear that neither Tony nor Yossi can trust anyone in positions of power or influence. Somehow, corruption lies at the heart of the case, and powerful people are involved. Thus, singly and together, the two defy senior police officials and the Israeli intelligence establishment, all of whom attempt to pin the murder on the usual Palestinian suspects. And the stakes for Tony quickly rise when both his niece and her fiancé are among them.

This baffling investigation leads Tony and Yossi into conflict with all the contending forces in the West Bank. Hamas. Yossi’s fellow police officers. The Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet or Shabak). And the fanatical Jewish settlers pushing the boundaries of their settlement in Hebron into the lands owned by Tony’s family. Through Tony’s and Yossi’s eyes, we gain insight into the wide range of views in both the Arab and the Jewish communities. And we witness the outbreak of violence between stone-throwing Palestinian teenagers and the homicidal settlers intent on genocide. All the ugliness of the Arab-Israeli conflict rises into the open in this deeply troubling novel.

About the author

Photo of Lawrence Wright, author of this West Bank murder mystery
Lawrence Wright. Image: author’s website

Lawrence Wright won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and numerous other awards for his 2006 book on 9/11, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. He has also written 10 other nonfiction books and four novels. Wright has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992 and is also a fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. He was born in 1947 in Oklahoma City and raised in Texas. Wright graduated from Tulane University and earned a master’s degree in applied linguistics from the American University in Cairo. He and his wife live today in Austin.

I read The Looming Tower before launching this website in 2010. Since then, I’ve read and reviewed three other books by Lawrence Wright, one nonfiction and two novels.

I’ve reviewed several other crime novels set in Palestine:

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