Dirt by Sarah Sultoon

 

Dirt by Sarah Sultoon.

Published by 19th January 2023 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

This is no utopia…

1996. Northern Israel. Lola leaves an unhappy home life in England for the fabled utopian life of a kibbutz, but this heavily guarded farming community on the Arab-Israeli border isn’t the idyll it seems, and tensions are festering.

Hundreds of miles away, in the Jerusalem offices of the International Tribune newspaper, all eyes are on Israel’s response to a spate of rocket attacks from Lebanon, until cub reporter Jonny Murphy gets a tip from a mysterious source that sends him straight into the danger zone.

When the body of an Arab worker is discovered in the dirt of the kibbutz chicken house, it triggers a series of events that puts Lola and the whole community in jeopardy, and Jonny begins to uncover a series of secrets that put everything at risk, as he begins to realise just how far some people will go to belong…

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1996, Northern Israel: Lola thought she had left her unhappy family life, and feelings of never quite fitting in, back in the UK, when she followed her best friend Sam out here to sample the famed kibbutz lifestyle. But it is not quite so easy to leave your problems behind when you are living among strangers in a heavily guarded compound near the Lebanese border, and you understand only a fraction of the divisions that trouble this land.

In Jerusalem, young reporter Jonny Murphy is also in Israel, searching for a sense of belonging among the family his mother left behind when she 'married out' of the Jewish community. His work immerses him in the fallout of the recent rocket attacks from Lebanon, and when he receives a surprising tip about something odd going on in a kibbutz near the northern border, he is sure he is on to a big story.

An Arab worker has been found murdered in a chicken house on the kibbutz, and it sparks a series of events that put Lola and her fellow kibbutzniks in danger. Can Jonny uncover the secrets that lie at the heart of this community before it is too late?

I love a story with layer upon layer to peel back before the truth becomes clear, and Dirt by Sarah Sultoon does this to perfection. What begins as a tale of a group of volunteers finding their feet in a kibbutz community that it not quite as idyllic as anticipated, especially given the strain of frequent missile attacks from just over the border, ripens into a story rife with complex relationship dynamics that are provoked by more than political and religious tension.

Following on from a chilling prologue, the story is driven by the narrations of Lola and Jonny, setting the scene about atmosphere between the workers at the kibbutz from one side, and the over-arching time and place on the other. You get the feeling that something is very wrong here about the way the workers interact with each other, but it is not until the murder brings Jonny on the scene in pursuit of a headline grabbing scoop that the secrets start to spill - especially when he is forced to reluctantly take on the role of detective.

Sultoon touches on so much in the telling of this tale, and her knowledge of the conflict that marks the Middle East really comes through in the way she spins what is essentially a murder mystery into a complicated story that twists beautifully into a cracking political thriller. However, it is the human factors that really make this book for me, in the way she floods it with echoing themes around blood, family, identity, loyalty, and power, using them with a light touch to lay bare what lies underneath the surface in more ways than one. Jonny and Lola are both broken, and I very much enjoyed how Sultoon uses their search for belonging to ramp up the emotional content too. And, as a fan of a clever book title, I must say that Dirt deserves a mention as one filled with many shades of delicious meaning.

This is a book to read in one sitting, as you follow the suspense suffused threads to their explosive conclusions - which I guarantee will take you to places you do not see coming! I am really looking forward to adding more Sarah Sultoon to my reading pile!    

Dirt is available to buy now in paperback and ebook.

Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me an ecopy of the book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of the blog tour. 

About the author:

Sarah Sultoon is a journalist and writer, whose work as an international news executive at CNN has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. She has extensive experience in conflict zones, winning three Peabody awards for her work on the war in Syria, an Emmy for her contribution to the coverage of Europe's migrant crisis in 2015, and a number of Royal Television Society gongs. 

As passionate about fiction as nonfiction, she recently completed a Masters of Studies in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge, adding to an undergraduate language degree in French and Spanish, and Masters of Philosophy in History, Film and Television. 

When not reading or writing she can usually be found somewhere outside, either running, swimming or throwing a ball for her three children and dog while she imagines what might happen if ...