Matt Rees (Welsh novelist and journalist) Add a review

Matthew Beynon Rees is a Welsh novelist and journalist. He is the author of The Palestine Quartet, a series of crime novels about Omar Yussef, a Palestinian sleuth, and of historical novels and thrillers. He is the winner of a Crime Writers' Association Dagger for his crime fiction in the UK and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for fiction in the US.

His first book was a work of nonfiction, Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East in 2004 (Free Press), about Israeli and Palestinian societies.

The New York Times called The Collaborator of Bethlehem, the first of his Palestinian crime novels about Bethlehem sleuth Omar Yussef, "an astonishing first novel." 'Le Figaro called the book "a masterpiece." Rees's writing has been compared with the work of Graham Greene, John le Carré, Georges Simenon and Henning Mankell. The French magazine L'Express called him "the Dashiell Hammett of Palestine." Rees's books have sold in 25 languages.

Rees was born in Newport, Wales. As a journalist, Rees covered the Middle East and lived in Jerusalem for 20 years. He was TIME's Jerusalem bureau chief from 2000 until 2006, writing award-winning stories about the Palestinian intifada. He also worked as Middle East correspondent for The Scotsman and Newsweek. He is married to the American humorist and author Devorah Blachor.