The inspiration for The Meaning of the Murder stems from one of the most pivotal and haunting moments of my life: 9/11. I was in the Bronx with my three-year-old daughter, far enough from Ground Zero to be physically safe, yet close enough to feel the weight of what was happening. The eerie silence, the faint scent of something unnatural in the air, and the fighter jets streaking across the skyโall of it made me realize how vulnerable we really were. Perhaps I was one of the so-called โnaรฏve Americans,โ but for the first time in my life, I felt the threat of war. We are under attack, I thought, and acknowledging this gave me a deep, unsettling helplessness. There was nothing I could do except protect my daughter and shield her from the images on television. The love I felt for her was totally overwhelming. Meanwhile, I knew that men and women in uniformโfirst respondersโwere rushing toward danger.
That moment made me think of my father. During World War II, he volunteered as a paratrooperโnot for the combat pay, but because he wanted to confront evil directly. He didnโt want to sit on the sidelines. On 9/11, I understood that urge. I wanted to take action. But how? That question stayed with me, and over time, it evolved into the driving force behind my novel.
The reality of terrorism is that it blurs boundaries. Is it war? Yesโbut not the kind with uniforms, frontlines, or declarations. Is it crime? Absolutelyโbut not for money, power, or revenge. Terrorism isnโt about stolen goods or turf wars. Itโs about ideology. Itโs strategic, symbolicโmeant to send a message, not just commit a crime. Thatโs why both the soldier and the cop find themselves on the front lines.
The battle against terrorism also involves bankingโfollowing the money to cut off the funding. This further complicates the boundary between military, law enforcement, and civilian life. And thatโs the premise for my new novel.
The Meaning of the Murder is about a Jewish family that unknowingly becomes entangled in the war on terror when the father, a bank compliance officer, discovers that his bank is violating OFAC laws and funding terrorists in the Middle East. He alerts the bankโs top brass, but they ignore him. After struggling with the conflict between his position as a fully assimilated member of his professional community and his moral obligations as a man and a Jew, he turns whistle-blower and goes to the DOJ. The night before his deposition, he disappears, leaving behind a wife and three daughters.
Eliana Golden, the middle child, was thirteen when her father disappeared. Years later, after surprising her family by joining the NYPD, she meets a mysterious and alluring soldierโa man who is far more dangerous than Eliana, and everyone except those at the highest and most secret levels of the U.S. government, understands. And he knows exactly what happened to her father.
What follows is a journey into the depths of Americaโs covert war against terrorism, but for all its geopolitical backdrop, the novel is ultimately intimate. Itโs about love: between a father and a daughter, between sisters bound together by loss, and between a husband and wife trying to hold on to each other in the face of fear and doubt. These relationships arenโt sentimentalโtheyโre fraught, tested, sometimes fraying. But theyโre also resilient. I wanted to explore how love endures, not as a shield against violence, but as a reason to keep going in the midst of it. Thatโs the emotional core behind this bookโand, I think, the deepest reason I felt compelled to write it.
A former crime reporter, Walter B. Levisโ work has appeared in The NY Daily News, The National Law Journal, The Chicago Reporter, The Chicago Lawyer, The New Republic, Show Business Magazine, and The New Yorker, among other publications. He is author of the novel Moments of Doubt. His short stories have appeared widely, and have been chosen for a Henfield Prize and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His new novel, The Meaning of the Murder, will be published in 2025 by Anaphora Literary Press. For 17 years he taught at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. Previously, he served as a Dean at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School.
