Terrorism in one of the world’s flashpoints
Dotan Naor, a former Israeli security agent, now private investigator, agrees to locate the missing son of ruthless Israeli arms merchant Willy Mizrachi. Willy is desperate to find his only son, Itiel, who has headed to an ashram in the Himalayas.
The Himalayas are also host to groups of young Israelis who have completed their mandatory military service—a sort of rite of passage. Now, those innocent kids are being hunted down by violent terrorists.
India and the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan is familiar territory to Dotan, as he searches for Itiel and for the source of these heinous attacks on Israeli youth.
International repercussions escalate as Dotan races to find the connection—or is there no connection at all?
“Dotan Naor is a character Steve McQueen would have fought to play: tough but insightful, ruthless but spiritually striving. Death in Shangri-La is a passport to a world most thriller readers haven’t seen before, and it’s a fascinating trip.”—Joseph Finder, New York Times best-selling author of The Switch
“Death in Shangri-La is a gripping read, part hard-boiled detective mystery and part contemporary thriller. Yigal Zur ventures down exotic lanes few have seen, but in the end readers will swear they’ve been there. Richly satisfying.” —Ward Larsen, USA Today best-selling author of Cutting Edge
“Death in Shangri-La is based on three real events: the first event that inspired me to write it was meeting the late Daniel Pearl in Oman two months prior to his 2002 murder in Pakistan. Soon after that I became the first embedded Israeli journalist in the second Iraqi war; the second event was the horror I felt when I heard about the massacre that took place at the Chabad House in Mumbai, India in 2008; the third event was when I discovered that one of the weapons used by the terrorists in India was a Tavor, an Israeli assault rifle. I thought – how is it possible that we Israelis have a part in this terrible event. I had to sit down to process this and write.”
“I created Dotan Naor as an archetype of the modern day Israeli, a man who fulfilled his duty to the Zionist ideal and the state with all his heart, but with age, starts to have doubts. Dotan follows the pattern of so many young Israelis when their mandatory military service ends. Like them he travels to Southeast Asia with nothing more than a backpack to learn the martial arts at their source. In Asia he discovers a new spiritual path and mission in life while continuing to help his native country and Jews wherever they may be. Dotan is a realist; he knows that some form of accommodation must be made with ones’ neighbors; you can’t be condemned to fight a forever war. As an Israeli soldier, Dotan Naor developed a tough exterior but as he gets out into the world, he develops an increasingly spiritual interior. “
