Tigerhill

As might be expected, when Yoram Kaniuk writes a thriller it is both original and unexpected. Tigerhill is read breathlessly from the first page to the surprise ending, and its riddles challenge the most experienced of readers. It begins when 24-year-old Hadar, a budding photo-journalist, has a bad dream. There is a great deal of blood, a train, a terrible noise, a tiger, a handsome man with cold eyes standing and laughing, and some boys with the faces of maimed dogs. In vain, Hadar tries to understand. Some hours later she reads in the newspapers about a sophisticated murder at a café: an explosive device went off and two young men were killed. The police have no clues. Hadar knows she dreamed about this event; she may even have been part of it. Can one person be in two places at the same time? She must solve this mystery, which is connected to her in a way she cannot understand.

A wise and fascinating writer whom Hadar photographed for the newspaper seems to be involved in the complicated story. But how? And what is the meaning of the enigmatic messages for Hadar that appear in the newspaper? The more Hadar (with her friends’ help) pieces together the parts of the puzzle, the more obvious it becomes that the explosion was meant for her, and it was by accident that the two men were killed instead. The answer lies in Hadar’s past and her family’s history. The murderer had good reason to wreak revenge on Hadar – not only for the death of his eldest son (whom Hadar met as a young child) – but also for the deaths of his other two sons.