The Ghost Runner

Makana #3

by Parker Bilal

It is 2002 and as tanks roll into the West Bank and the reverberations of 9/11 echo across the globe, tensions are running high on Cairo's streets.

Private Investigator Makana, in exile from his native Sudan and increasingly haunted by memories of his wife and daughter, is shaken out of his despondency when a routine surveillance job leads him to the horrific murder of a teenage girl. In a country where honor killings are commonplace and the authorities seem all too eager to turn a blind eye, Makana determines to track down the perpetrator. He finds unexpected assistance in the shape of Azza, a woman who seems to share Makana's hunger for justice.

Seeking answers in the dead girl's past he travels to Siwa, an oasis town on the edge of the great Sahara Desert, where the law seems disturbingly far away and old grievances simmer just below the surface. As violence follows him through the twisting, sandblown streets and an old enemy lurks in the shadows, Makana discovers that the truth can be as deadly and as changeable as the desert beneath his feet.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Egypt, Fiction, Thriller, Africa, Middle East

413 pages, Hardcover

First published February 4, 2014

About the author

Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub. Mahjoub has published seven critically acclaimed literary novels, which have been widely translated. Born in London, he has lived at various times in the UK, Sudan, Cairo and Denmark. He currently lives in Barcelona.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another outing for Sudanese private investigator Makana, and this particular investigation into the death of a young girl takes him from Cairo to the small town of Siwa. Whilst there, he's drafted in to help the local police chief investigate the murder of a prominent member of the community. This somewhat lawless community has its own brand of 'justice' and is hiding a secret of its own. Makana soon discovers that here in Siwa he can trust no one.

Makana is an engaging character with admirable tenacity, a no-nonsense approach and a determination not take anything at face value. In the heat of the Saharan desert, he battles on as people try to deflect, deceive and intimidate him. There are times when his poker-faced conversations with various people go on too long, but the overall impression is of a powerful novel on an important theme written with passion and insight. Makana will be back. Look out for him.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy books that transport me to a different place and culture. I found myself googling photos of the oasis town of Siwi on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Here we meet corrupt officials and policemen, and further out into the desert are smugglers and jihadists, and weapons sold of every description.

Makana is working as a private detective, exiled from Sudan, and living in Cairo. He had been a police investigator in Khartoum, Sudan in the past. I found him to be a likeable protagonist with solid police ethics and moral standards. He was tenacious in his work, and his stubbornness to follow through on his cases often resulted in dangerous situations.

The story begins with Makana working in a routine detective case following a woman’ s husband who is suspected of having an affair. What he learns is the man is visiting a horribly burned teenaged girl in hospital, who later dies. The police conclude the fire was an accident or suicide. The man now hires Makana to go to Siwi, where he believes her murderer may be hiding.

In Siwi he is drafted by the local ineffective but ambitious police chief to solve a couple of brutal murders for him. This lawless settlement has its own sense of justice. The truth and the solution connecting all these killings lies here in the past, and no one is talking about treacherous secrets.

Makana, as an outsider, finds his motives are the cause of gossip and speculation and he is regarded with suspicion. There are very few he can trust in a town where corruption and lawlessness reign. The more he works on the original case which brought him to Siwi, and his work with the local police assisting them with recent murders earns him the distrust and hatred of many. His life is in danger.

This is the third book in a series featuring Detective Makana. It can be read as a standalone as we learn important and unfortunate events in his past. I found the plot somewhat convoluted and complex. There were many difficult foreign names to sort out and remember, as one is bound to meet the characters later,
either alive or dead. In this remote desert settlement, ancient traditions and outlooks were entrenched, and the plight of women grim. Honor killings of women not uncommon and sometimes ignored. The story is set after 9/11 and some innocent people are being rounded up. The Palestine situation also adds to the uneasy background of the plot.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars may be a tiny stretch but I'm going with it because I picked this up without realizing it was third in a series and I not only liked it but it stood very well on it's own. Makana is a private detective based in Cairo and the story starts there with our protagonist doing a bit of bread and butter private detecting, following a man because his wife thinks he is having an affair. He finds no evidence of such and the plot moves on to the horrendous death of a young woman. Strangely enough the husband of his original employer hires Makana to solve the death of this young woman, a death the police have labeled a suicide. Adventures ensue and the mystery had some good twists and turns but what I really enjoyed the most about this book is the intriguing foreign setting and points of view. I love reading books that instruct as well as entertain and it is always instructive to read what the rest of the world thinks about events and politics and religion. I had a couple of good quotes to illustrate my point but the book needs to go back to the library and I have so much on my to do list right now I shouldn't even be on goodreads at.all. I will be keeping my eye out for further books by Parker Bilal, with or without Makana.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this as part of the Goodreads first reads giveaway and this is the second of this authors works I have read. I probably would have overlooked these books if it were not for the giveaways. More fool me as I am now a Parker Bilal convert and fan.
Bilal is one of those rare creatures who is able to combine the talents of a literary author with the ability to write taut gripping thrillers. This is the third outing for his investigator Makana who patrols the shady streets of Cairo. I was gripped from the first page and love the palpable tension that almost drips from every page. In a few words Bilal really shows you the darker side of Cairo, so much so that it feels as if you are walking alongside the investigator. I LOVED IT - I'm now off to track the other books down.

[Laetitia Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

J’aurai pu mettre un quatre mais malheureusement j’ai mis énormément de temps à rentrer dans ce récit ! Makana est attachant, le lecteur est plongé dans les paysages de Siwa, les Oasis, et la deuxième enquête est prenante, mais cela n’efface pas le première partie très longuette…

[susan murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Really enjoying about makana hired by a suspicious wife and ends up working for her husband looking into why a girl was killed as police think its suicide. He travels to siwa where he encounters the local sheriff and ends up having to help him as 2 people from different parts of life get killed and horribly maimed"
"Makana goes to meet a young girl she doesn't turn up and sees people talking and is suspicious then on way back someone tries to kill him then he is thrown out of town but comes back quietly to try and find out what is going on"
Wonderful book one of the best I've read storyline keeps you really interested.I would recommend this book to people who like a strong storyline and a detective in a way you really grow to like makana and keep hoping with all the trouble he finds he can find his way out of it safe fully

[David Joseph Mikels · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far the story is very interesting and I like the main character. Some of the names are strange and hard to remember but overall worth my reading time.
BTW I got this book for FREE from GOODREADS FIRST READS!!!!

[Marjan Mulder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Te veel personages met moeilijke namen. ik raakte het spoor af en toe bijster.

[Inge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fijne detective en eens een keer heel wat anders dan de gemiddelde serie. Ik ga zeker meer van detective Makana lezen.

[Malvika Jaswal · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was crime fiction set in Egypt. A definite first for me. And surprise, surprise, I loved the author's execution of the story, the locale, the desert and the beliefs of the people living in small towns away from the hustle and bustle of city. A desert always seems to lend itself as a perfect backdrop for any number of fables. Parker Bilal presents a surprisingly fast paced and sharply edited thriller that incorporates the Egyptian landscape and lifestyles in perfect harmony with the plot.

PI Makana lost his wife and daughter while fleeing the change of regime in Sudan years ago where he had been a well-respected, up and coming police detective. Now he lives in Cairo, Egypt on a dilapidated houseboat and does any investigation that calls for his expertise and some that do not, like divorce investigations. The story begins with Makana shadowing a respected lawyer who is suspected by his wife of having an affair. On the last day of surveillance the lawyer leads Makana to a nursing home where he visits a badly burnt 17 year old young woman.

In a strange twist of events, the lawyer then employs Makana to find out the truth about what really happened to the girl. While the police believes it to be a suicide attempt, the lawyer suspects it of being an honour killing by the girl's estranged father. The matter is complicated by the fact of the father being a known terrorist and exiled from the country years ago. Also, the father never maintained a relationship with his family and it seems strange that he would come back after such a long time to kill his daughter. Makana's investigations lead him to the small town called Siwa near the border from where the girl's parents originally hailed.

The greater part of the book takes place in Siwa and various strange and inexplicable happenings keep Makana there for longer than he anticipated. Its a story of viciousness and the hard life for the people who stay at the mercy of the desert. It is also the story of the status or lack thereof of women in a Muslim country. A sobering reflection that there are huge tracts of land where women are considered commodities owned by the men in their lives and have little or no rights. It is chilling to imagine that but for the privilege of birth one may have been born into a society where one had as much freedom as a slave in some ancient Arabian night story. The author brings out the strange attitude of a small community towards child abuse and incest where it is deemed best to keep one's head down and follow the maxim 'a man's home is his business'. Even as Parker Bilal enumerates the numerous wrongs carried out against the women in the story, he still presents them as women of spirit and sense - a circumstance not easily digested by the men who had control over their lives.

The author presents the local police force as trying their best to curb terrorist influence in a country with porous borders where it is very difficult to convince people to help them and there are many willing to bend the teachings of their holy scriptures to suit their own nefarious purposes. It is a tight rope for those who are responsible for law and order in the country and wish to be seen by the rest of the world as doing everything they can to counter terrorism.

Makana like most successful detectives in literature is a tortured soul. The death of his wife and the conflicting reports of his daughter's escape weigh him down heavily. In this book he also meets a woman who intrigues and attracts him by her beauty and courage although she seemed a little unstable to me by her hyper-active reactions. Makana also has some very loyal friends who stand by him irrespective of the danger that they may find themselves through his investigations. Maybe the suspense was not really very effective an one did have an inkling where things were headed, but one is given over to enjoying the story and the characters. I liked Makana from the very first pages and he doesn't let the reader down at any point. It is just my kind of fiction and I loved it.

One thing though - Egyptian names are very different from any I have ever read or heard before. It made a little difficult to remember them all at first, but it all worked out in the end. Wondered about them quite a bit and decided it is probably the African influence.

[Céline Roany · Rating 2 out of 5]

J’ai beaucoup apprécié de partir à la découverte d’une Egypte éloignée des cartes postales touristiques ou des épouvantails sécuritaires. Les ombres du désert se passe à Siwa, qui est une ville coincée entre plusieurs oasis, au Nord-ouest de l’Egypte, et à proximité de la frontière libyenne. L’auteur réussi parfaitement à retranscrire la chaleur sèche et l’omniprésence oppressante du désert, ainsi que l’isolement de la ville.

Isolement géographique, bien sûr, mais aussi isolement administratif. On comprend que la conception de la justice, là-bas, n’est pas la même qu’au Caire, trop éloignée, inaccessible.

Ecriture, style, construction, Parker Bilal maîtrise tout cela, ce qui est déjà énorme dans le panorama du polar actuel. La mécanique policière est implacable, et, quand on devine le qui?, reste toujours en suspens le pourquoi ?

Les ombres du désert est donc un bon polar tout court, mais aussi un bon polar ethnique.

J’ai quand même des critiques à émettre.

La fin est un peu longuette. Ca n’en finit plus de rebondir, et ça finit par rebondir pour rien, simplement pour intégrer ces événements dans un contexte plus large qui ne s’intègrent malheureusement à l’histoire. Ce n’est pas parce que le livre évoque trois ou quatre fois des événements en Palestine qu’il s’inscrit dans ce contexte.

Malgré toutes ses qualités, j’ai mis du temps à le lire. Le reposer n’était pas un problème, le retrouver n’était pas spécialement une fête, bien que la fin m’a gardée rivée. Pourquoi ?

L ‘auteur n’a pas réussi à m’impliquer dans son histoire. Je me fichais comme d’une guigne de qui avait tué et pourquoi. Je n’avais pas d’empathie pour les victimes, aussi différentes soient-elle. Je voyais nulle part où était réellement abordée la place des femmes dans l’Islam, pas d’histoire secondaire ou d’anecdote qui y soit reliée – à ça ou n’importe quel thème. Juste le suivi têtu d’un ancien policier qui quittait le Caire pour une petite ville éloignée tandis que l’Intifada faisait rage dans les territoires occupés. Je lisais une histoire certes bien racontée, mais en deux dimensions.

De même, aucun des personnages ne m’a touché – sauf une personne, mais à la fin -. Ils sont pourtant tous, à un degré divers, intéressants, dotés de qualités et de faiblesses, de zones d’ombre et de bravoure. Et pourquoi ça ? Parce que je n’ai pas été impliquée dans leur existence, évidemment, mais aussi, encore, toujours, parce que l’auteur utilise beaucoup trop la description au lieu d’utiliser l’exposition (le fameux « Show, don’t tell »). Il me dit comment sont les différents protagonistes au lieu de me le montrer. Il a fallu attendre la fin du livre pour que je ressente un peu ce que c’était qu’être une femme dans cette ville. Les personnages parlent, s’agitent, mais l’auteur ne nous fait pas plonger dans leur coeur, ne nous pose pas sur leur épaule pour voir le monde avec leurs yeux.

Et alors que ce roman a quasiment tout ce qu’il faut pour un polar (une bonne histoire, un bon héros, une structure travaillée, un bon style), je ne peux que me raccrocher à des éléments techniques et objectifs pour le qualifier de « bon ».

Il m’a manqué le plus important, l’émotion.

[Tripfiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thriller set in Egypt (both Cairo and Siwa)

The third in the Private Investigator Makana series by Parker Bilal. Makana is hired by a lawyer after a woman in Cairo is burnt to death in a fire (a murder, although it is meant to look like suicide…). The chief suspect is Musab, the estranged husband of the woman – he is a criminal and jihadist, who has been ‘rendered’ from Denmark back to Egypt… and then escaped custody. Musab, and his murdered wife, came from Siwa, an oasis town 350 miles from Cairo and just 30 miles from the Libyan border on the edge of the Great Sahara Desert. And Siwa, where he believes Musab will have fled to, is where Makana heads to solve the mystery.

But Siwa is a long way from Cairo, and law and order are handled very differently. Memories and feuds go back a long way. The corrupt local magistrate is murdered and Makana himself is a suspect. He struggles to demonstrate his innocence and to move his own enquiries to a conclusion. He gets involved with racketeers and cross border smugglers.

I read The Ghost Runner pretty quickly. It is a good thriller and a great page turner. There are a couple of twists at the end (and pleased to say that I spotted one of them before it unfolded – but that in no way detracted from the pleasure of the book). I ended wanting more…

The Ghost Runner is also a brilliant book for TripFiction aficionados who look for well described locations. It really brings Egypt to life. The overcrowded bustle and hustle of Cairo come through loud and clear, and is in stark contrast to the all pervasive heat and sand of Siwa. Siwa (I hadn’t hear of it either…) is a real life tourist destination with ancient archaeological ruins and a couple of very decent looking hotels. I hope the inhabitants are a deal more friendly than most of those described in the book…! it looks a fascinating place to visit.

This review originally appeared on our blog: http://www.tripfiction.com/thriller-s...

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 2002 in Cairo and there is political and military unease throughout the region. Makana is hired by a jealous wife to spy on her husband, a prosperous attorney. Then the husband hires him to look into the cause of a fire which killed a young woman shopkeeper. It may have been an accident, but it may have been an honor killing, or it may have something to do with her father, a man who was imprisoned as a terrorist, exiled, and is rumored to have come back to Egypt.

The search is encouraged by Makana's new friend, Zahra, a women's rights advocate. It takes him to a claustrophobic little town on the edge of the Sahara, where everyone know everything, nobody tells anything and nothing is forgotten.

As usual, the characters and the setting are what make this series so satisfying - the political, religious and social minefields that Makana, essentially apolitical and secular, must navigate to get to the truth, the multigenerational crimes, feuds and grudges that even death cannot end.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and different series set in Egypt. It features a former Sudanese policeman now a PI in Cairo. Makana is hired by a lawyer's wife to check him for adultery and ends up being hired by the lawyer to investigate who killed a young girl. The search takes him to the remote but beautiful Siwa Oasis in the Sahara on the border with Libya. Makana ends up investigating another murder in the town that occurs just as he arrives. It's a small town with a dark past. Oh and there's a terrorism angle as the book is set right after 9/11 and involves a dissident who is no more than a thug. The thug is the murdered girl's father. Makana is the outsider and his adventures around Siwa take on an interesting but slow and tantalizing pace as more murders occur and corruption and ghosts are discovered. The ending of this book is quite a shock and it's Ludlum-like in the manner of intrigue, twists and turns, and bloodshed. Corruption, greed, and saving face are what's it all about.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting private eye mystery thriller set in cairo and siwa. markana is a sudanese ex-cop immigrant stuck in egypt, freelancing. sometime the one-offs by poets and literaturists are the best pulp noirs Christine Falls ; Fencing the Sky: A Novel and parker bilal is one of them folks , jamal mahjoub http://www.jamalmahjoub.com/books.php
interesting story to me as these mysteries contain politics, religion,history, business, culture. this one particularly is set in siwa, an unusual oasis area in rural egypt. author does a good job, like matt rees The Collaborator of Bethlehem

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book from First Reads and was thrilled to get it.
A modern thriller/murder mystery set overseas and dealing with the post 9/11 war on terror. This is the second book I have read including the theme of extraordinary rendition in recent weeks (this first was A Delicate Truth by John le Carre). Very different to the other book as the focus of this book is solving the crime.
Little that is ground breaking in terms of the genre - there is the usual haunted detective with baggage, the usual twists turns and heartbreak for the main character.
Having said that though if you love this genre it is well worth reading and the "exotic" locations are explored well.
Will read more by this author.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written novel of a land that seems arid and foreign to me but Bilal gently teases me to love it as well as he obviously does. Take this passage: "He climbed the hill into the old city. The fronds toiled like dark waves in motion. Crows, black against the deep red, twisted in the air like tightly knotted thoughts." Such poetry!

Makana's character is one I well admire; quiet, thoughtful and with an air of tragedy always present. The book moves fairly quickly with the exception of me having to re-read passages such as the above! I will definitely be looking for his previous books to read.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parker Bilal has lived in England, Sudan, Cairo, Denmark, and now Barcelona so it is no surprise that his books have intriguing foreign settings. This third book in the Makana mystery series continues the exploits of Private Investigator Makana who plies his trade in Cairo while in exile from his native Sudan. Makana is on a routine surveillance which leads him to discover the murder of a teenage girl. Makana’s drive to find justice for the girl takes him to a rather lawless town called Siwa, on the edge of the Sahara Desert where justice seems very far away. readamysterywithme.blogspot.com

[Dilek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Son derece etkileyici bir hikaye. Makana soruşturmasının peşinde bu kez Kahire'den ayrılıp küçük bir sınır şehrine gidiyor ve bu tür yerlerde kadına ve çocuklara uygulanan şiddetin, yasaları uygulamaktan sorumlu olanların ikiyüzlülüğü ve açgözlülüğünün alabileceği boyutları, hayatların nasıl kolayca harcanabildiğini görüyor. Her zamanki gibi sonuna kadar gitmekten geri durmuyor ve olayın tek başına bir cinayetten çok daha kirli ve karmaşık ilişkiler içeren bir boyuta dönüşmesine tanık oluyor.

[Nashwa Abdo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is a chance to try to live a story could be happened to many people regarldess of the details or how it's happening ... You will live a painful events , and it might change your mind about things that happened in your real life because we can't just simply turn away from our past as if it didn't exist one day !!
Very rich story , unexpected and hard to put down ..

[Cynthia Rodrigues · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read Full & Detailed review: https://cynthology.blogspot.com/2022/...

The Ghost Runner was a sordid tale of jealousy and corruption, of unrequited love and greed, all playing against the backdrop of a sleepy yet dangerous town in Egypt.

The descriptions looked at a non-Western culture with an eye that was clinically Western and indulgently local. I particularly enjoyed the voice of the omniscient narrator and the opinions it offered. The author packs his descriptions with nuggets of history and analysis of politics, all told with the elan of a storyteller, keeping us entranced.

The prose was rich, colourful and evocative. Even when the details were disgusting, as in the walls of Makana’s hotel room in Siwa, speckled with red flecks, which are squashed fleas and mosquitoes, we receive them with keen interest.

The author also does a fantastic job of evoking the setting. Siwa and Cairo are both pictured so well, every little detail in place, that we actually feel ourselves transported there.

The characters, the bureaucracy in the small town, and the situations there lend themselves to some dry humour that the author delivers without taking away from the gravity of the main plot in the story.

The locale was as much of a character here. The weather conditions, the attitude and behaviour of the people, the life around and how it played out, they all play a part in rooting us in the setting. Bit by bit, Egypt seeps into us.

The author unveiled Makana to us in the same manner. As readers, we begin to feel a regard and respect for the man, for the doggedness with which he clings to the belief that justice must be served, and the dedication with which he strives for justice, even at great personal cost.

In the background is the larger crisis, America easing into its self-styled role, as the policeman of the world, messing up the crisis in the Middle East. Here the author presents an indirect critique which has no direct bearing on the events of this story, but still informs the events of the story and why circumstances are the way they are.

[Tbfrank · Rating 5 out of 5]

American thrillers are full of characters like Travis McGee and Jack Reacher, equally comfortable with fists and firearms. Recently I've read novels by authors from South America to Scandinavia, Asia to the Mid-East. These mystery thrillers tend to differ from their American counter-parts as the heroes rarely carry weapons, are not physically imposing, and survive as much through perseverance and instinct as by good fortune. Former Sudanese Police Inspector Makana is one such hero.

Makana escaped the political chaos in his homeland at the cost of his wife and daughter. He made it to Cairo where he's spent the last decade as a private detective, establishing contacts and surviving on his meager income. Otherwise, his life is stuck in a sort of limbo as he grieves for his dead wife and child. Makana takes a snooper case, following a husband suspected of two-timing his wife that abruptly changes into a hunt for a suspected arsonist, murderer, and possible terrorist.

Makana demonstrates a strength of character the reader isn't sure stems from a sense of morality, belief in justice, or a growing fatalism. As the story progresses, the author skewers the high and the low, believers and unbelievers, governments, the police, and the War on Terror - a battle waging in that part of the globe for decades. Woven throughout are tactile descriptions of people and places, bringing the heat and dust of the desert, and the cacophony of the Cairo streets to life.

[La Livrophile]

J'ai apprécié ce tome 3 des aventures de Makana, mais je ne peux pas dire si je l'ai autant aimé que les deux précédents. Au départ, il m'a plu que le détective se retrouve à passer d'une filature à quelque chose de tout autre. Il m'a aussi plu que l'énigme reste opaque pour moi. Je n'ai rien deviné avant que l'auteur ne le décide. Par exemple, lorsque Makana arrive à Siwa en pleine enquête pour meurtre, je me doutais, comme lui, que les choses étaient plus complexes qu'il n'y paraissait.Après un bon démarrage, l'intrigue traîne un peu. Cela ne m'a pas trop gênée: l'auteur pose certaines choses, Makana prend la mesure de faits, de personnages... En arrière-plan, on retrouve les interrogations du détective concernant sa fille. Le personnage principal reste très sympathique. C'est reposant, cela fait un protagoniste dont le lecteur peut être sûr.Pour moi, les fils des énigmes n'étaient pas forcément faciles à démêler. Je pense que le meurtrier de Siwa aurait dû s'attaquer d'abord aux personnes les plus nuisibles...[...]Lire la suite sur:

[Umut Çalışan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makana yine bildiğiniz gibi, yine melankolik, yine meraklı ve yine her zamanki gibi yürüyen bir at nalı kadar şanslı. Bu kez awamasında saldırıya uğramasa da binbir türlü ölüm tehlikesi atlattı ve hepsinden son anda kurtuldu. Lakin bu sonsuz şansının serinin son kitabına kadar gideceğini düşünsek bile akciğer kanserinden koruyacağından emin değilim. Bu kadar sigara içilir mi arkadaş? İçtiği sigara da anladığım kadarıyla bizim vakt-i zamanının Kısa Samsun’u gibi bir şey.

Önceki hayatında kör talih mıknatısı olması muhtemel Makana’nın başı kirli polisler, rüşvetçi devlet adamları, sıradan olmalarına rağmen karanlık ilişki ağlarına bulaşmış, büyük adamları tanıyan küçük haydutlar ile derde giriyor. Bu kitabın “cennet vatanımdan izler” temasında ise karşıdan bakınca ahlak timsali, namus abidesi gibi görünen ama kendi içlerinde yaşanmak kaydı ile her türlü ahlaksızlığı kanıksayan, unutan, devlet sırrı gibi saklayan, dahası failleri değil de kurbanları ya da ortaya çıkarmaya kalkanları suçlayan, top yekun bir şehir halkını görüyoruz. http://www.umutcalisan.com/...cu-park...

[T · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard for me to get into, but finished this one about an ex-cop turned private investigator who starts out hired by a woman to watch her husband to see if he is cheating on her. Said husband is an attorney who then hires the investigator, Makata, to look into the family of a badly burned young woman who dies in a fire. The attorney had defended the woman's father and he was banished from the country. but may have returned, may have started the fire that killed his daughter.

Along the way, Makata runs into a disgraced alcoholic small town doctor who makes his own brew, a few corrupt cops, a shady hotel keeper and his daughter, and uncovers the story of the burned woman's family.

[Florita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this series. Set in Egypt and dealing with the bad people in a corrupt sleepy town. Funny lines that make you crack up. Makana is always getting himself tied up and getting hurt in his adventures but goes on to figure out the whole story, which is most of the time riddled with many stories and lives.. I already ordered the next book of his. His life is also woven into this story so you want to get to the next book to see what is going to come of it and if it is like the other mysteries he has solved, this will be a doozy when he finds out what he is looking for...living for.

[Lynne Power · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read following Makana the private investigator. This is my third Makana story and I feel very comfortable with him in the lead. Again as in the previous two books the setting, Cairo and Siwa Coast are a big reason for the attraction as well as seeing post 9/11 in an Arabic area. The story held together well with a satisfying resolution. Well written and well paced.

[Jim Bogue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Third in a series, this novel finds Makana asked to look for a possible killer in Siwa, an Egyptian town in the Sahara. Everyone involved is keeping secrets, including probably his client. Siwa is backward and riven by strains Makana strives to understand.
Great atmosphere, but the coincidences and plot twists somewhat test credulity. Still, Makana tries to be a good guy.

[Femke De · Rating 2 out of 5]

Een voormalig politie rechercheur wordt gevraagd om n moord op te lossen. Het verhaal nodigt uit tot doorlezen en een deel van de belevenissen in het woestijnstadje en haar inwoners komen goed tot leven. Er komen echter teveel losse personen en losse eindjes voorbij om het verhaal echt boeiend te houden.

[P.D.R. Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ouch! Too near the truth of today for a pleasant read, but this series is hard hitting and not meant to be a candyfloss read.

If you enjoy foreign settings (Egypt) and tough, troubled investigators then you will enjoy this novel and probably the whole series. Give it a go.