Murder in the Kollel - Melvyn WestreichThe rabbi in charge of the Kollel (Torah study center) in East Lansing, Michigan, is murdered, but the murderer is successful in making it look as if he hung himself in his basement. The head rabbi of the Yeshiva in Detroit is sure that the rabbi did not take his own life and asks Simon Lincoln, a new student in the Yeshiva to investigate. The tall, blonde, muscular, 37 year old former super-tough Detroit Police detective, hardly looks like a typical Yeshiva student, even though he wears the official Yeshiva uniform of a black suit and black Fedora. Dafna Lachler, a 31 year old local widow, super skilled computer expert and amateur sleuth, finagles her way into becoming his partner in the investigation of this baffling case. There is not a shred of evidence that this was not a suicide. There are no signs of a struggle and no signs of trauma other than that of the hanging. He was alone in the locked house and the alarm system shows that no one entered. The medical examiner found no evidence of foul play. Everyone liked the rabbi and his wife and no one stood to gain financially or personally by the death of the rabbi. Everyone close to the rabbi has perfect alibis and before his death the rabbi had informed his boss that he would be leaving his position, apparently because of psychiatric problems. The detective in charge of the investigation is a friend of Simon's from his days on the Detroit Police and is extremely cooperative. Simon discovers that Dafna's husband had been a member of the Kollel before he died two years earlier and as the story progresses so does their mutual attraction. Dafna, using her extraordinary computer skills, discovers that before his death someone had erased specific files from the rabbi's computer and writes a program to discover what the files may have contained. The rabbi's wife turns out to be a woman with extreme OCD tendencies. The people around her put up with her idiosyncrasies because she utilizes her need for perfection to help the community. The wife's alibi is that she was at a film and this is substantiated by GPS tracking of her phone and surveillance video showing her in the theater and her car in the parking lot. In addition she is a small woman and it would be impossible for her to move or lift the rabbi's body. Simon and Dafna investigate the rabbi's death and slowly uncover a number of unexplained anomalies. Simon is eventually able to prove that the rabbi was murdered but does not know who could have murdered the rabbi or how the murderer accomplished it. One thing is certain ... their investigation is making the murderer nervous because he keeps trying to kill them.The pair of sleuths work well together and more than a professional bond begins to develop. Dafna's mom and her two daughters are all for the romance but our heroes must keep within the rules of ultra-orthodox Judaism. Not easy when their lives are in danger. They are bombed, assaulted and shot, but they eventually solve this locked door mystery.
About the Author: Born in the royal palace at Hampton Court, England (it was a maternity hospital at the end of WWII), Melvyn Westreich was raised in New York City. He attended Yeshiva University and completed his medical degree and residencies at Wayne State University, in Detroit. After completing his studies he moved to Israel and eventually became the chairman of the Department of Plastic Surgery at the Assaf HaRofeh Medical Center of Tel Aviv University, Sackler School of Medicine, the President of the Israel Association of Plastic Surgery and the Chairman of the Board of Plastic Surgery of Israel. His interests include travel, photography, gardening and he has a mishigas about Japanese Gardens. He presently lives on Kibbutz Yavne, in Israel, with his wife Ada. Murder in the Kollel, is his first published novel.