Past Imperfect

When his rabbi calls him after Yom Kippur, private eye Benjamin Gold thinks it’s just to yell at him for skipping services—but it’s even worse than that.

It turns out that Benny missed more than some prayers and a sermon: While everyone else was atoning for their sins, a fight broke out in synagogue when a visitor accused one of the leading members of the congregation of being a Nazi collaborator.

Is Mendel Kahn the upstanding benefactor of Cleveland’s Jewish community he seems to be? Is his real-estate fortune the product of ten years of hard work and good luck, or does his success have a more sinister origin? Is he even Mendel Kahn—or is he really Yitzhak Fried, who exploited and tortured his fellow Jews during the War?

As Gold digs into Kahn’s dark story, he learns that the man’s present is bad enough: he’s a slumlord, a gangster, and a sadist. He also doesn’t appreciate being investigated…and he has some large and dangerous friends. Can Benjamin Gold survive long enough to uncover the real story of Mendel Kahn’s past?