REALLY, with all that's going on, you'd think this book would be impossible to put down.

First, an ancient Torah scroll disappears. Then, the adopted son of a Jewish head priest is murdered. Oh, turns out, he (the son) is gay and he's got hundreds of millions of dollars stashed somewhere. More murders ensue.

The best part? The man suspected of the head priest's son's murder, whom everyone had believed to be his lover, is actually his biological father.

With most thrillers, the pay off is actually worth all those hours of reading, but the only thing I got out of The Samaritan's Secret was the nagging thought that I should've spent the time doing my laundry instead.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest secret is how Mr Rees managed to get his book published.

Ok, to be fair, it's not all that bad.

When I first picked up the book, I thought it was full of promise. Here was a thriller set in the West Bank, and with the recent real-life Gaza war between the Israelis and the Palestinians, I was eager to see how Mr Rees' tale would add to the discourse on Middle Eastern politics and war.

I was further encouraged, when I read on the book's jacket, that Mr Rees had spent six years as Time Magazine's Jerusalem bureau chief.

What is refreshing in the story is Mr Rees' ease with Middle Eastern culture, where men and women greet each other by saying "Evening of joy," instead of hello.

Also peppered throughout the story are throwaway lines that help augment its authenticity, such as: "Marriage is the most important thing in life. It keeps men away from illegal sex and perversions," and "A fat woman is a blanket for winter."

Some are less successful, such as: "He had a frown like a thousand fatal fatwas"; but on the whole it's pretty good.

Also, Mr Rees' protagonist is memorable. At the centre of his babbling book is a bumbling history teacher turned amateur detective, Mr Omar Yussef, who is sort of an Arab version of Hercule Poirot.

Like Angela Christie's famous French sleuth, Omar is in his 70s, fat, and armed with a wit as dry as a crisp Chianti.

As unlikely as Mr Rees' tale may be, Omar is likeable enough. He is also courageous. As one by one, policemen give up the murder investigation, fearing for their own lives, Omar ploughs on.

There is a scene where, as he is about to be murdered, with his favourite grand-daughter held hostage, you almost feel sorry for the guy.

But ultimately, Omar - and the reader - is let down not so much by the police department but by Mr Rees' sloppy writing, which uses cheap tactics to imitate good story-telling.

There are so many cliches in his narrative arc - the millions, the murders and the midnight cowboys - that at some point, I started counting down the pages to a high-speed car chase.

Successful thrillers, whether it's Michael Crichton's science-based novels or John Grisham's legal dramas, always blur the lines between fact and fiction.

The motive is simple: Readers' interests are piqued when stories hang on the cusp of believability. Even the Da Vinci Code, for all its outrageous claims about Jesus and Mary Magdelene, in Dan Brown's hands, almost seemed truthful.

In comparison, Mr Ree's literary attempt seems lazy, unsophisticated, and an insult to the genre.

Fiction
The Samaritan’s Secret  by Matt Rees
Atlantic Books/310 pgs/$30.79 (w/o GST)
half-a-star/5