title: A Strange Death: A Story Originating in Espionage, Betrayal, and Vengeance in a Village in Old Palestine
author:  Hillel Halkin 
description: This promises to be about a mystery relating to a pro-British spy ring in WWI Palestine; in the end it delivers both more and less. Halkin, who delightfully explored another historical mystery in <i>Across the Sabbath River</i>, looks at the dramatic early history of Zichron Ya'akov, one of the first Zionist settlements in Palestine. During WWI, Yosef Lishansky and Sarah Aaronsohn, young locals who favored the British over the ruling Ottomans, led the spy ring, called Nili, bringing internecine conflict and Ottoman retribution to the town. Caught by the Turks, Aaronsohn was tortured and committed suicide; Lishansky was hanged. This much is generally known. But Halkin, poking around local ruins and interviewing old-timers after moving to Zichron in the early '70s, pursues two linked mysteries: was Nili betrayed by a Zichron resident, Perl Appelbaum, and was Appelbaum in turn poisoned in revenge? In exploring these questions, Halkin vividly portrays the Nili protagonists, the rough life in early Zichron, ideological divisions among various Zionist groups, the easy relations between settlers and native Arabs, and the buried secrets and passions of an average town. But the tale gets hijacked by one of Halkin's main sources, whose dramatic but digressiveand, it turns out, heavily fabricatedaccounts of his own youth in Zichron detract from the narrative's momentum and coherence. <i>(June)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text:   
  
  _Killing Secrets_ is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either
  are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
  coincidental.
  
  An Alibi eBook Original Copyright © 2015 by Dianne Emley All rights reserved.
  
  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a
  division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
  
  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of
  Penguin Random House LLC.
  
  eBook ISBN 9780804178945
  
  Cover design: Scott Biel Cover image: ©Mohamad Itani/Trevillion Images
  [readalibi.com](http://readalibi.com)
  
  v4.1_r1
  
  ep
  
  Contents
  
  > [ _Cover_](Emle_9780804178945_epub3_cvi_r1.xhtml)
  
  >  _Title Page_
  
  >  _Copyright_
  
  > Chapter 1
  
  > Chapter 2
  
  > Chapter 3
  
  > Chapter 4
  
  > Chapter 5
  
  > Chapter 6
  
  > Chapter 7
  
  > Chapter 8
  
  > Chapter 9
  
  > Chapter 10
  
  > Chapter 11
  
  > Chapter 12
  
  > Chapter 13
  
  > Chapter 14
  
  > Chapter 15
  
  > Chapter 