From the back cover:

Unorthodox mystery at its best

Rabbi David Small is back - full of the same wit and wisdom, persistence and chutzpah, that put him on bestseller lists every day of the week! Ever since he made his debut in Friday the Rabbi Slep Late, the adventures of Harry Kemelman's unassuming hero have been hailed by critics and fans. And now, at last, new fans and old can enjoy the latest adventure of one of the world's most unusual sleuths.

This time around, Rabbi Small faces one of the toughest cases in his career: political corruption, definitely non-kosher, brewed with a dash of dirty campaign tricks, blackmail, and a possible murder. All the while, Small is also facing millionaire Howard Magnuson, the famous corporate leader and newly appointed president of the temple, who decides early on that Small is not a "team player" and sets out to replace him before his daughter's wedding...

Another Rabbi Small mystery that I found somewhere as a used paperback. I'll probably read this myself before passing it on.

Update (Feb 24): Another quite enjoyable Rabbi Small mystery, although some of the little lectures on Judaism felt a bit gratuitous and the views of Christianity fairly odd. There certainly are Christians out there who seem to think bad things only happen to those who deserve it, but that's hardly the teaching of any mainstream Christian church and more probably has to do with those people wanting to think that such horrible things (accidents and the like) could never happen to themselves.

I also tend to find insistence on only ever possibly dining in households which keep a completely kosher kitchen and not writing anything (which covers jotting down a telephone number) on Sabbath baffling - surely it's more "work" trying to remember a phone number, and the meal one eats being according to the rules ought to be enough, what with most people in the world going hungry and all. (A wonderful way never to get to know many people outside of one's own circles, too.) But I guess that's not the point.

I have some problems with Kemelman's female characters too - they're rarely sympathetic, rarely too intelligent and generally seem very dependent on their father or husband. Not to mention they're often portrayed nagging their husbands into doing things they shouldn't do.

I took the book with me from the local BC-meeting.

I will pass on this book to the next reader at the Bookcrossing meet-up in Kotka. Happy reading!

My ex-workmate at the Academic Bookstore just loved Rabbi Little and praised how much she learned about Judaism from these books.

Began reading this, but when I got to the political hanky-panky I knew it was time to stop. Luckily I noticed that Rabbi Little was on CatharinaL's wishlist and the book will get a Christmas wrapping and become a HGG parcel.

I met Myntti today at Main Library Metso, Tampere, where she handed me this nicely wrapped HGG parcel — the wrapper was in fact a map leaf of southern France, with "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL DEC. 24" marked across on felt tip. Myntti and I had been meaning to meet for the past 3 weeks or so, but every week it turned out our schedules were just impossibly incompatible; today, however, we were finally able to agree on a time and a place. OF COURSE I couldn't resist temptation any longer! I'd been waiting for long enough already :-D I ripped open the parcel the minute Myntti had left and I had some alone time upstairs at the library café!!! Oh, and how I burst out laughing when I saw the title of the book — Chanukah was early this year, so I reckon I have a full right to enjoy Rabbi Small and not have to wait until Xmas Eve... Also, and perfectly in line with the theme of this specific HGG parcel, it just so happened that after meeting Myntti, I was teaching an elementary Hebrew lesson to a group of friends.

Thanks again for a wonderful surprise. I've only ever read a couple of Rabbi Small books, but I've always found them super entertaining and amusing.

I read this at one go last night. Like kirjakko, I'm not too crazy about political intrigue and pretty much went ahead fast-forward with the main plot. The story started out nicely, with interesting scenarios both in Rabbi Small's and Laura's lives, but I felt all the plotlines falling completely flat at about halfway into the book. I always read any Kemelman book with gusto, sure; I'm just not sure about how to rate this one. I feel like a lot of this could've been worked into something much more suspenseful and entertaining. What I did enjoy, though, was the portrayal of certain types of people: I guess we all have a political player or two among our circle of friends; and I guess most of us tend to side with Rabbi Small in our relation to them — unless, of course, we are the players ourselves.

Also: what does the Arizona theme remind me of? From the beginning, I thought I'd read this one before and knew the whodunnit, Mr. Feinberg having murdered his wife and now playing out to send her to far-out Arizona to treat her asthma? Anyone know what book that is? Could be in the Rabbi Small series or just as well, say, a Paul Auster novel?