Rabbi Small is one rabbi of a kind, working for over a year in the 'temple' in Massachusetts, for a couple of hundreds of Jewish families.When he was in the middle of the discussions about the renewal of his contract, an attractive young blonde babysitter was found dead on the synagogue's lover lane and her bag in the rabbi's car.
The first from the 12 series built around Rabbi Small, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman was published in 1964 and received the Edgar Award for Best First Novel one year later.
For me, this was my first encounter with the rabbi and it was a pleasant lecture. It is a classical mystery novel, with hints spread long before the crime was committed, with a simple narrative and relatively easy going characters - both the bad and the good ones. The solution to the crime is highly unexpected, with couple of fake possible culprits dismissed during the search, but makes logically sense.
Additionally, there is the talmudic touch of the story, which makes it into a Jewish mystery. The Rabbi, a learned man deeply immersed into his learning and disregarding the need of building up alliances among the synagogue board members, uses his bright mind and talmudic knowledge to judge and find the murder. Compared to other religious chiefs - like the Catholic and Protestant priests - through judgment can a rabbi help the larger society in the middle of which he is living (not by blessing yachts for instance). But there are some ugly faces to the co-existence - which by the way are still surviving in the 21st century America: once the rabbi was counted among the suspects, there is a group of 'idiots of the village' - we'll call them 'alt-right' nowadays - calling him and his wife throwing up nauseous anti-Semitic attacks and even painting a red swastika on their door. The ways in which the Jews are seen by the majority is a matter of concern for the board of the 'temple' which makes sense anywhere in the diaspora.
I enjoyed this mystery and would love to read all the books from the series. Rabbi Small is a very relatable person to deal with.
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