Thursday, October 26, 2017

The Sofia Globe: The Burgas Affair to be released in English

The Bulgarian version, ‘Бургаската афера’ was released last year. Now, author Ellis Shuman is about to publish the original English version of his novel, entitled ‘The Burgas Affair’.


It is a story which contains some reality: the terrorist attack at Burgas Airport in 2012, during which five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian bus driver were murdered. In ‘The Burgas Affair’, the aftermath of the attack is fictional.

An Israeli data analyst and a Bulgarian detective are tracking down those responsible. The two must establish whether the terrorists were assisted by a Bulgarian crime organization, in laying the groundwork for the attack.

Read the rest of the story on The Sofia Globe.

The Sofia Globe, published online in English and German, provides news, features, insight and analysis about Bulgaria, Central and Eastern Europe.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

How My Job Relocation Led to My Writing a Crime Thriller


My boss called me into his office one day toward the end of 2008 and informed me that my job was being relocated from Tel Aviv to Bulgaria. If I didn’t agree to relocate, someone would be chosen to replace me. I told my wife that we needed to talk.

At the time, I was a division manager in an Israel-based company providing marketing and support services in the online gaming sector. I had been working at the company for four years and I was starting to consider looking for new challenges. I had dreamed of working overseas but I thought that at my age, relocation would never be an option.

Read the rest of this article on LinkedIn.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Oops! I built my sukkah upside-down!


When you purchase a sukkah in Israel it's supposed to be a lifetime investment. The so-called sukkah l'netzach is easily constructed and then stored away after the holiday for future use. How is it, then, that I've gone through four or five of the contraptions over the years?

The first "ever-lasting" sukkah I bought was nothing more than a set of irrigation pipes. The end of each pipe had to be screwed onto the next pipe's connecting threads with the help of a monkey wrench. This sukkah swayed dangerously in the slightest breeze. After one or two holidays, the end of the pipes broke off, effectively shortening its shelf life.

The second sukkah I purchased, also designed for eternal use, was a marketer's mad concept of an Erector Set. It consisted of two golf bags filled with a multitude of bars, angles, connecting joints, and support pieces. There were diagrams included but construction was worse than finishing a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. The sukkah stood in place at last, and then it collapsed.

Read the rest of this article on The Times of Israel.