A Long Night in Paris by Dov Alfon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If it were the end of the year, I would be able to say that this is my absolute most loved book of the year. I can definitely say, it is the book that will stick with me. I do not recall how I found out about A Long Night in Paris, but, I was waiting for release day with so much excitement. Release day came and I immediately went to Amazon.com to purchase an electronic copy for my Kindle and to my utter dismay it was not available on Kindle in the U.S. I did the sad little trek to the bottom right of the page and clicked the link to say I would like to read this on Kindle. I went to the UK version and saw it was on Kindle there. Unfortunately, they will not allow us to purchase electronic books for our Kindles here in the U.S.. They deny us and force us back over to the U.S. site to wait and hope. I did the next best thing and searched for which bookseller could sell me a hard copy, soft copy, any kind of copy and get it to me as quickly as possible. Then I waited. It felt like weeks but was about 5 or so days. I dropped the book I was reading and tore into it. Unfortunately, I work approximately a gazillion hours a week so I found myself standing over the stove wishing I had a kindle so I could read while I cooked, or leaned against the counter, or had 5 minutes between meetings.

A Long Night in Paris is a bit of everything, a mystery, a thriller, and an espionage story. A murder happens in the first couple of pages right off of the plane in Paris and it is a whirlwind of events trying to find out what happened to the Israeli IT person 5 seconds off of the plane in Paris. It was the start of many murders and a night where the French police, one Israeli unit commander who "happened" to be in the same airport on his first day in his new position (with the help of his new unit back in Israel), and what appears to be Chinese gangsters of some sort.

One of the best parts of A Long Night in Paris was how the book got its name and I love how the reader catches it while reading. The only part that threw me was keeping track of the titles. Some were listed in the back of the book, but, I was a bit lost with the heads of the different units for the Israeli intelligence/military. I finished the book and immediately flipped to the front and said, no, not that guy. Please tell me it is not that guy. I tracked the title in the units and found it was, in fact, that guy. Wow! If ever I was tired of watching politics play out on the news, this book was like the car crash of political stories, both in Israel and Paris. You do not want to watch, but, you cannot look away. I wouldn't call it a slow-moving espionage story. I would call it a slow burn. It just kept building and building. I loved how it was told from three different points-of-view and each one was as interesting and exciting as the other. Of course, the Paris side of things was the most action-packed. I have to admit that Abadi and Oriana were my favorite characters. But, each character introduced in the book was well described and lived up to who you thought they would be. I have a feeling we might see more of these characters, or at least I am greatly hoping that is the case. Otherwise, I will have to wait a few months and hope for a Kindle edition and read it all over again. Even better would be an audiobook.