Jonathan Dunsky

Jonathan Dunsky (born 1978 in Tel Aviv) - As a teenager, Dunsky committed to mastering English by reading books in the language with a dictionary at his side to look up every unfamiliar word. He has never lived in an English-speaking country, but writes directly in English rather than in in Hebrew, his native language.

His Adam Lapid series protagonist is a hard-boiled private investigator on the “dusty streets” of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during the austerity period of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lapid was formerly a police detective in Hungary whose wife and two young daughters were murdered in Auschwitz. He is characterized as a “haunted” loner who suffers from survivor’s guilt and chronic nightmares. He has a near-obsession with chess, often playing against himself at a local café to stimulate his deductive reasoning. Although he operates in the shadows of Israeli society, he maintains a strict, if “morally gray,” personal code. He frequently takes cases that the regular police refuse to investigate, especially those involving marginalized victims or fellow survivors. Dunsky explores the social tensions of the era, including the divide between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews, the treatment of Arab citizens in the new state, and the deep emotional trauma shared by the immigrant population. Renowned mystery author Lawrence Block has compared Dunsky’s portrayal of 1949 Tel Aviv to Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles. [Google/AI]

Dunsky, Jonathan, (Ten Years Gone [Adam Lapid #1]) [pb, CreateSpace Independent, 2017] 978-1546633792 [hc, Lion Cub Publishing, 2021] 978-9657795071

(The Dead Sister [Adam Lapid #2]) [pb, CreateSpace Independent, 2016] 978-1539131885 [hc, Lion Cub Publishing, 2024] 978-9657795088

(The Auschwitz Violinist [Adam Lapid #3] [Lion Cub Publishing, 2016]) [hc] 978-9657795095 [pb] 978-9657795026

(The Unlucky Woman [Lapid short story, pb, independently published, 2018]) 978-1731028983

(A Debt of Death [Lapid #4]) [Lion Cub Publishing, 2021]) pb, April 2021] 978-9657795033 [hc] 978-9657795101

(A Deadly Act [Lapid #5, Lion Cub Publishing, 2021]) [hc] 978-9657795118 [pb] 978-9657795040

(The Auschwitz Detective [Lapid #6]) {Lion Cub Publishing, 2021] [pb] 978-9657795057 [hc] 978-9657795125 [Note: a prequel to the series, but published as book 6]

(A Death in Jerusalem [Lapid #7]) [Lion Cub Publishing, 2022] [pb] 978-9657795217 [hc] 978-9657795231

(In That Sleep of Death [Lapid #8]) {Lion Cub Publishing, 2024] [hc] 978-9657795491 [pb] 978-9657795477

(The Jewish Policeman [Lapid #9] [hc, Lion Cub Publishing, 2026] 978-9657795545 [pb, Lion Cub Publishing, 2026] 978-9657795521