In his afterword to this story about a discredited Israeli Minister of Trade's retreat to Crimea with his mistress, David Bezmozgis (The Free World) recognizes the risks of setting a contemporary, politically layered fiction in countries in the news. While acknowledging that Crimea's recent annexation by Russia and the armed conflict between Israel and Gaza have made his novel's settings more broadly recognized, he also "felt frustrated that world events conspired to undermine my designs for the book." To Bezmozgis's credit, The Betrayers tells such a rich story that it could be an enduring success regardless of the front-page news.
Baruch Kotler rose in Israeli politics as a dissident hero who survived 14 years in a Soviet gulag and championed Jewish self-determination. But in his mid-60s, his public repudiation of the prime minister leads to his political downfall and swift relocation to Yalta with his young mistress, Leora. He has hopes of a quiet life of love on the beaches of Crimea, away from his wife and adult children--until he discovers that the owner of his rental cottage is the same turncoat Russian Jew whose betrayal sent Kotler to the gulag. Caught in an emotional cauldron of lust, vengeance and regret, Kotler is forced to examine his choices and to attempt to do the right thing with regard to Leora, his family, his country and the former KGB informant.
Bezmozgis has engagingly captured all the historical and moral ambiguity hanging over the head of one man trying to sort out what's right in a world of wrongs. This is a powerful novel--both timely and timeless. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kans.