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j_lange's review against another edition
5.0
This was a better mystery than the earlier books, I have to say. I also really enjoyed the side conversations about education and higher educational conflicts- while definitely a snapshot of higher education post-Vietnam, I think a lot of this book resonated with today's political climate perfectly.
HOWEVER- For the love of all that is good in the world- WHY do we have to end with bashing unmarried people? ALSO- WHY do we have to have the knitter be the killer? *SIGH* I feel attacked.
HOWEVER- For the love of all that is good in the world- WHY do we have to end with bashing unmarried people? ALSO- WHY do we have to have the knitter be the killer? *SIGH* I feel attacked.
joyfultunes's review
challenging
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
4.0
There were a few rants in the middle that I felt like were just the author expressing his frustration through the voice of his characters. But other than that, I enjoyed this one a lot. I sort of guessed who had done it, but I had no idea how or why until the end. A well written mystery!
eososray's review against another edition
4.0
I thought this was one of the better books in this series. The change of place from the community to a college gave the Rabbi a little more personality and made the education into Jewish law and life not quite so out of place.
cebolla's review against another edition
4.0
This is the fifth Rabbi Smal book I've read and the first time I solved the mystery on my own. Still an entertaining read though.
polyhy_14's review
challenging
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
skateanddonate's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely love this series
Another fantastic story in the life of Rabbi Small. This book like the previous books in this series left me smiling. Not a modern fiction starting in the midst of action and rushing strait through to the finish. This is an old school style where characters are fully developed til you feel like you’ve known them forever. Both sides are shown to each issue mentioned and the depth is remarkable. This one is at a new location with new characters and as Rabbi Small gets to know them you see them and some of their alibis. Then the bombing / murder happens and you are right their trying to figure it out. I really love this series. After reading book one I bought the first seven in this series. Plan on buying the next five tomorrow. The characterization, plots, and depth of discussion in these books is beyond compare. Highly recommend!
Another fantastic story in the life of Rabbi Small. This book like the previous books in this series left me smiling. Not a modern fiction starting in the midst of action and rushing strait through to the finish. This is an old school style where characters are fully developed til you feel like you’ve known them forever. Both sides are shown to each issue mentioned and the depth is remarkable. This one is at a new location with new characters and as Rabbi Small gets to know them you see them and some of their alibis. Then the bombing / murder happens and you are right their trying to figure it out. I really love this series. After reading book one I bought the first seven in this series. Plan on buying the next five tomorrow. The characterization, plots, and depth of discussion in these books is beyond compare. Highly recommend!
ncrabb's review against another edition
4.0
Ah, back in the fascinating world or Rabbi David Small. What a treat this was, as they always are. I fear this is the last of them I’ve not read, so this may well be a long and heart-felt farewell to the only rabbi I’ve ever known. But I’ll keep that long stuff only in my head and keep the review short for your sake. I regret that, because I can’t find spellings of character names, I won’t refer to them in this review. That’s the major glaring downside of an audiobook.
Rabbi Small takes the call in early September. Windemere Christian College needs a rabbi who can teach a class on Jewish philosophy and thought. The previous guy didn’t want to do it, and since the dean of the college grew up in the same town where Rabbi Small has his congregation, she felt he would do an excellent job. He accepted.
The quiet rabbi shares an office with an irascible English department head who proudly displays a heavy bust of Homer on a high shelf above his desk. Small’s officemate has little good to say about Jews, but his nastiness is all-inclusive, since he lashes out at blacks, the Irish, and any other minority. But the quiet rabbi doesn’t use the office much, so he doesn’t interact with the guy enough to dislike him.
Classes aren’t easy at first. The students with their lack of respect anger Small. This is a little liberal arts college in the years after Kent State but before the end of the Vietnam War, so tensions run high. Students are unhappy that a somewhat radical Jewish professor won’t get a contract renewal, and they have a dialogue-filled sit-in at the dean’s office. They get nasty and profane with her, and she walks out of the office and doesn’t return. Minutes later, someone explodes a bomb near Rabbi Small’s office, and the heavy bust of Homer leaves the shelf and takes up a new resting place on the head of Small’s curmudgeonly officemate. The explosion didn’t kill him; but that bust of Homer did. The question is, did the bust fall because of the explosion? Or did some other sinister force come into play?
Like the other books in the series, this one teaches much about Judaism as it existed in the early and mid-1970s. I love the philosophical stuff here. You learn so much about Judaism, and the good rabbi relies heavily on his knowledge of the Talmud to help crack the case.
Rabbi Small takes the call in early September. Windemere Christian College needs a rabbi who can teach a class on Jewish philosophy and thought. The previous guy didn’t want to do it, and since the dean of the college grew up in the same town where Rabbi Small has his congregation, she felt he would do an excellent job. He accepted.
The quiet rabbi shares an office with an irascible English department head who proudly displays a heavy bust of Homer on a high shelf above his desk. Small’s officemate has little good to say about Jews, but his nastiness is all-inclusive, since he lashes out at blacks, the Irish, and any other minority. But the quiet rabbi doesn’t use the office much, so he doesn’t interact with the guy enough to dislike him.
Classes aren’t easy at first. The students with their lack of respect anger Small. This is a little liberal arts college in the years after Kent State but before the end of the Vietnam War, so tensions run high. Students are unhappy that a somewhat radical Jewish professor won’t get a contract renewal, and they have a dialogue-filled sit-in at the dean’s office. They get nasty and profane with her, and she walks out of the office and doesn’t return. Minutes later, someone explodes a bomb near Rabbi Small’s office, and the heavy bust of Homer leaves the shelf and takes up a new resting place on the head of Small’s curmudgeonly officemate. The explosion didn’t kill him; but that bust of Homer did. The question is, did the bust fall because of the explosion? Or did some other sinister force come into play?
Like the other books in the series, this one teaches much about Judaism as it existed in the early and mid-1970s. I love the philosophical stuff here. You learn so much about Judaism, and the good rabbi relies heavily on his knowledge of the Talmud to help crack the case.
evafc's review against another edition
4.0
Op een of andere manier kan ik sinds de zomervakantie mijn draai wat betreft boeken even niet vinden. Dit boek lag nog klaar na een lovende recensie hier op Goodreads. En het is goed bevallen. Het is een whodunnit, maar anders dan anders. Nergens had ik het gevoel dat ik echt een misdaadroman aan het lezen was. Het verhaal zit goed in elkaar, geen haastige spoed maar langzame zekere schreden richting de oplossing. Het meest interessant vind ik het inkijkje in de Joodse cultuur. Daar weet ik weinig van en het is uitermate boeiend om te lezen over Joodse gebruiken, filosofie en het leven van een Rabbi. Erg interessant.
Somehow, eversince the summer holidays, I have not been able to reminder nu readingmojo. This book looked like a welcome break and was sitting on my shelf, after a rewarding review on Goodreads. And it is well-liked. It's a whodunnit, but different than anything else. Nowhere did I feel like I was really reading a crime novel. The story is well-connected, not fast-paced but slow-moving to the solution. Most interestingly I find the bits on Jewish culture. I know little about it and it is extremely interesting to read about Jewish practices, philosophy and the life of a Rabbi. I will certainly read some more by this author.
Somehow, eversince the summer holidays, I have not been able to reminder nu readingmojo. This book looked like a welcome break and was sitting on my shelf, after a rewarding review on Goodreads. And it is well-liked. It's a whodunnit, but different than anything else. Nowhere did I feel like I was really reading a crime novel. The story is well-connected, not fast-paced but slow-moving to the solution. Most interestingly I find the bits on Jewish culture. I know little about it and it is extremely interesting to read about Jewish practices, philosophy and the life of a Rabbi. I will certainly read some more by this author.
brianlokker's review against another edition
4.0
In Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red, Rabbi David Small accepts an offer to teach a course in Jewish Thought and Philosophy at Windemere Christian College in Boston. If you’ve read any of the books in the Rabbi Small Mysteries series (this is the fifth), you know that this is right up the rabbi’s alley. He believes that a rabbi’s primary role is to be a teacher.
He is disappointed to discover that most of his students enrolled in his class because it’s considered an easy A. What’s more, the majority of the students regularly cut the Friday afternoon session of the class. In order to overcome his frustration, he has to work harder than he expected to engage the students.
Things take an unexpected turn when another professor is found dead after an explosion. The police suspect some of Rabbi Small’s students of planting the bomb, but the rabbi doesn’t agree that the facts support the official position. As he has done in the past, he applies his Talmudic reasoning skills and his acute powers of observation to help solve the case.
Listening to Rabbi Small expound on Jewish thought is one of the best aspects of the books in this series, and this one is no exception. Teaching at a (nominally) Christian college provides an opportunity for him to teach his students about some of the differences that he sees between Judaism and Christianity. He is very respectful of Christianity but quite naturally prefers the Jewish approach.
He tells his students that “‘Christianity is … other-worldly, heaven-oriented, while our religion is this-world oriented. We oppose what is evil in the world and enjoy the good things, spiritual and material, it has to offer.’” “‘Christianity is a very pleasant religion. It offers a number of highly desirable responses to questions that have beset man down through the ages. He fears death and finds life too short, and the church offers him a world after death with a life everlasting. All we can offer in that respect is the hope that he will live on in his children and in the memory of his friends.’” When a student questions the benefit of that worldview, he says, “‘It doesn’t permit us to dodge problems, but it does help us to solve them, if only by recognizing they exist.’”
Maybe this explains why Rabbi Small takes such an interest in, and is so good, at solving crimes.
I’ve been enjoying the books in this series, and Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red is no exception. I did guess the identity of the perpetrator quite a while before it was revealed, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. It’s a pleasant mystery story (to the extent that any story involving murder can be described as “pleasant”) with interesting insights into Jewish thought and culture added to the mix.
He is disappointed to discover that most of his students enrolled in his class because it’s considered an easy A. What’s more, the majority of the students regularly cut the Friday afternoon session of the class. In order to overcome his frustration, he has to work harder than he expected to engage the students.
Things take an unexpected turn when another professor is found dead after an explosion. The police suspect some of Rabbi Small’s students of planting the bomb, but the rabbi doesn’t agree that the facts support the official position. As he has done in the past, he applies his Talmudic reasoning skills and his acute powers of observation to help solve the case.
Listening to Rabbi Small expound on Jewish thought is one of the best aspects of the books in this series, and this one is no exception. Teaching at a (nominally) Christian college provides an opportunity for him to teach his students about some of the differences that he sees between Judaism and Christianity. He is very respectful of Christianity but quite naturally prefers the Jewish approach.
He tells his students that “‘Christianity is … other-worldly, heaven-oriented, while our religion is this-world oriented. We oppose what is evil in the world and enjoy the good things, spiritual and material, it has to offer.’” “‘Christianity is a very pleasant religion. It offers a number of highly desirable responses to questions that have beset man down through the ages. He fears death and finds life too short, and the church offers him a world after death with a life everlasting. All we can offer in that respect is the hope that he will live on in his children and in the memory of his friends.’” When a student questions the benefit of that worldview, he says, “‘It doesn’t permit us to dodge problems, but it does help us to solve them, if only by recognizing they exist.’”
Maybe this explains why Rabbi Small takes such an interest in, and is so good, at solving crimes.
I’ve been enjoying the books in this series, and Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red is no exception. I did guess the identity of the perpetrator quite a while before it was revealed, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. It’s a pleasant mystery story (to the extent that any story involving murder can be described as “pleasant”) with interesting insights into Jewish thought and culture added to the mix.