Reporter finds fiction clears Mideast fog of war

JERUSALEM, June 14 (Reuters) In early 2001, Adnan Shahine was dragged into the chilly streets of Bethlehem and shot dead by Palestinian compatriots who accused him of spying for Israel.

The show of brutal scruples was chronicled by Time magazine correspondent Matt Rees and the dead ''collaborator'' joined his thickening file of Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, stories.

Weeks later, Rees happened upon someone close to Shahine's killers. They had a candid chat.

''He told me that everyone knew Shahine was no collaborator, just easy prey who was murdered to deter others from spying,'' Rees recalled. ''Of course, by then it was old news.'' For Rees, the sense of discontinuity and distortion, that traditional reportage was missing the heart of an ever-messier crisis, did not go away. So he decided to make things up.

The result was a novel, ''The Bethlehem Murders'', which has been welcomed by critics as both an important addition to the sub-genre of mystery fiction set in non-Anglophone cultures and as a glimpse into the intricacies of Palestinian communal life.

Rees, a Briton, had dreamed for years of turning crime writer.

But he also describes his first novel, published in Britain this week after a successful US run under the title ''The Collaborator of Bethlehem'', as a service to truth.

''Journalism is a form of anthropology. But with all its formulas, it still fails to get behind things,'' said Rees, 39.

''If a news report is the first draft of history, then a novel is its interpretation. In my opinion, this is a book that, 10 or 20 years down the line, will better inform people about this place than most journalism can.'' PALESTINIAN FOCUS With its affinity to Western culture and a string of Hebrew-language novelists available in translation, Israel has long been featured on bookshelves abroad. Novels involving Palestinians have tended to treat them as archetypal aggressors or victims -- byproducts of an Israeli narrative.

''The Bethlehem Murders'', by contrast, takes place almost exclusively within a Palestinian society riven by often violent disputes between Muslims and Christians, clans and politicians.

Israel is a menacing, foreign presence felt throughout. But while an assassination by Israeli special forces sets Rees's protagonist, Omar Yussef, off on his sleuthing mission, he ends up confronting fellow Palestinians -- the armed vigilantes who rule lawless West Bank streets.

''There is enormous distrust among Palestinians,'' Rees said.

''But that meant that, paradoxically, I was seen as a 'safe' outsider. People opened up to me, and I realised that once you got past the rhetoric, they had a story that needed to be told.'' Yussef is a retiring 56-year-old war refugee who harbours no hatred of Israel, and a recovering alcoholic -- hardly the type of man to stir admiration among Palestinians who voted hardline Hamas Islamists into power.

Rees, whose tenure at Time ended last year, said Yussef, like other characters in his novel, was inspired by Palestinians he met while reporting in the West Bank and Gaza.

''He was a very independent thinker who persisted in speaking out against violence and corruption, even when it put him in danger,'' Rees said, without giving the man's name.

Rees promises sequels to ''The Bethlehem Murders'' taking Yussef to Gaza, Nablus, Damascus and Beirut -- ''the whole Arab tour''.

''What is key is Yussef's evolving relationship in the novels with his grand-daughter. She is the future,'' Rees said.

REUTERS SG VC0835