The Story Behind “Murder Over the Border”
Richard Steinitz (b.1947) was born in New York to German Jewish immigrant parents. After four years at S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo, he moved to Israel where he has lived since then. He is the father of two, and grandfather of one.
As a 40+ year resident of Israel and veteran of more than 20 years service as a Medic in the Israeli army (reserves), he was disappointed by the lack of accurately written books dealing with the Israel-Arab conflict. Many works of fiction presume to give an accurate picture of the area and the event, yet contain glaring errors of fact and even simple translation.
His first novel, Murder Over the Border, builds upon his intimate knowledge of the country, the people that live in and around it, and on the hopes and dreams of all the peoples of the region.
Richard Steinitz is now working on his second novel.
About twenty-five years ago, I was doing my annual reserve military service as a medic. Normally I would go for two-three weeks with my normal battalion, but this time I had been called up to serve with men from a different unit, as my battalion was not due for service and the other unit needed a medic. This sort of “secondment”, as the Brits call it, is a common and fairly unpleasant type of service, as you are stationed somewhere with 20-30 other people whom you have never met before, in close and uncomfortable quarters, and at the end of the day, you are dependent on them for your own personal safety.
Fortunately, it was a very peaceful period, and if truth be told, a very boring three weeks. However, the location was spectacular and made up in nature for strangers I was serving with. As in my novel Murder Over the Border, I was stationed in a little outpost at the foot of the Golan Heights in northern Israel, just by the “triangular border” where Israel, Syrian and Jordan come together.
Most of our task was to watch this border from a little watchtower placed on top of the building in the middle of the outpost. As this ‘triangular border’ is know more for its natural beauty than for any military action, this was a easy yet stupefying task. On the Jordanian side of the border (which is marked by the confluence of the Jordan and Yarmuch rivers) there is a road which meanders down the mountain side into the Jordan rift valley, and from there, south to the city of Aqaba – some 450 kilometers away. We had a humongously large telescope, mounted on a tripod, and we were told to watch the road on the other side, and report any unusual movement of military vehicles.
Since the sum total of vehicles passing by on that road did not total more than 4 or 5 per day, most of the time we would read books or look out at the country side. The outpost was located on a little hill, to give it topographical superiority over anyone that might have aggressive ideas concerning it, and was surrounded by concentric circles of barbed wire, with landmines scattered between the wires (or at least that is what the signs said). One day, while sitting by the telescope and acquiring a fierce sun tan, I noticed an ibex (a small antelope) climbing our little hill. He paid no attention to the barbed wire, easily jumping over it, and totally ignored the signs warning that the area was mined. It seems that the weight of the ibex was not enough to set off the mines, and so he wandered about in complete safety, grazing on the little vegetation there was. He (or she – I could not tell) was soon joined by others from the flock and we spent a pleasant morning together – they ignored me and I was captivated by them.
This became an almost daily occurrence, and I began to enjoy my service, rather than hate it. My one regret was that I had not brought my camera with me, and could not photograph these beautiful and graceful little creatures.
The large amounts of spare time that I had during these weeks also caused my creative juices to flow, and I began imagining a story based on the circumstances and location I was in. The three weeks came to an end, but the idea for this story remained in the back of my mind for months and years, until finally I began to actually write the story. The writing process was long and uneven, and months would go by without a word being added to it. Working at a full time job and being a husband and father took up the vast majority of my time and it would be eight years before the story (now a full-length novel) was finished.
May 27, 2011
Posted in: Guest Blogs
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5 Responses
I’m really interested in this story!
Sounds really good! Thanks for offering!
Please enter me in the book drawing.
Richard, this backstory is really interesting. I like mysteries set in the Middle East and will look forward to reading this when/if it comes out in a print format
Thank you all for your very encouraging comments. So far I have not found a print-publisher that is interested in producing hard-copies of the book, so for now, it is only available as a e-book.
All the best, and hope you get to read the whole book soon- somehow!
Richard
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