Σκοτεινοί δρόμοι του Καΐρου

Makana #1

by Parker Bilal, Χίλντα Παπαδημητρίου (translator)

Ο πρώην αστυνομικός επιθεωρητής Μακάνα, εξόριστος από την πατρίδα του το Σουδάν, ζει σε μια ξεχαρβαλωμένη φελούκα του Νείλου, στο Κάιρο, βγάζοντας με κόπο τα προς το ζην σαν ιδιωτικός ερευνητής. Όταν τον προσλαμβάνει ο διαβόητος και πανίσχυρος Σάαντ Χάναφι, βρίσκεται απότομα σ’ έναν επικίνδυνο και αστραφτερό κόσμο. Ο Χάναφι είναι ιδιοκτήτης μιας ποδοσφαιρικής ομάδας με πολλά διάσημα ονόματα, της οποίας όμως ο πιο πολύτιμος παίκτης έχει εξαφανιστεί. Η εξαφάνισή του απειλεί να καταστρέψει όχι μόνο την προσωπική αυτοκρατορία του επιχειρηματία αλλά και ολόκληρη τη χώρα. Ο Μακάνα αντιμετωπίζει μουσουλμάνους εξτρεμιστές, Ρώσους κακοποιούς και μια απελπισμένη μητέρα που αναζητάει τη χαμένη κόρη της, καθώς η έρευνά του ανακινεί οδυνηρές αναμνήσεις, επαναφέροντάς τον στο στόχαστρο ενός παλιού κι επικίνδυνου εχθρού…

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

456 pages, Paperback

First published January 2, 2012

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

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 There are some very fine reviews of this 2012 crime/mystery novel, the first of a 6-book series. For a broader look at the novel, I recommend you check them out. I agree that the city is a character itself and it has a complicated plot. A trail that goes off in many different paths that I waited patiently for how it would all fit together. So, it was a slow burn for me, and I struggled to keep at it during the first half of the book. Halfway, I realized I was thoroughly immersed in the story and powered through the rest over the last two days.

The main storyline is set in 1998 Cairo with a few flashbacks thrown in to provide much needed backstory. The MC, Makana a former Sudanese police officer, fled his country seven years prior as the radical Islamic military junta was consolidating power and increasing the violent extermination of those who would oppose them. One of the most affecting conversations in the whole book concerned the danger of this new regime and is chillingly reminiscent of what happens (or can happen) in countries around the world to this day. (Muna) "You don't understand. These people care nothing for your rules, your sense of duty. They want power, and to get it they will sweep you away, you and your department, even the law itself. None of that means anything to them" (Makana) "Your wrong. There is such thing as a rule of law. There is a constitution."
(Muna) "They will rewrite the constitution to suit themselves." "People like you and me, they hate us because we can read and write, because we can see through them. Because we choose not to live our lives according to the norms of the seventh century" Makana wanted to believe in the system, in justice winning out in the end, because wasn't that the whole point for him? He had served it, fought for it, defended it with his life. Now he was just supposed to step aside and let them know do with it as they wished?
The above comes in a flashback during the latter part of the novel, by then you already have a good idea about Makana's moral compass. It stands in quite a contrast to the picture of Cairo's own political pressures and the corruption that has ensued during a lot of upheaval over the decades. Thugs are now the wealthy and powerful while the bulk of the population is scraping by. So, he continues to be on the outside as a refugee in Egypt and thus is quite surprised when one of the wealthiest men wants to hire him as a PI to find a missing star football/soccer player. He can ill afford to turn down a job and he begins the task, not knowing the complications and danger that lie ahead.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first novel in a series featuring Makana, a former Sudanese policeman, who has fled to Cairo. Like so many fictional detective heroes, Makana has his own personal demons; in his case the loss of his wife and daughter, and his guilt at not attempting to leave Sudan earlier and possibly saving his family. He is a refugee in a country which tolerates him, but in which he is always, essentially, an outsider. Now he works as a private detective and barely ekes out a living; sleeping on a houseboat where his widowed landlady regularly punishes him by turning off the electricity, if his rent arrears get too high.

Considering his precarious, financial position, Makana cannot turn down any work. Especially when the man who sends a car to collect him is not other than wealthy businessman, Saad Hanafi. Among his many businesses (rumoured to be both legal and illegal), Hanafi owns a football team. Now his star player, Adil Romario, has gone missing and Hanafi wants Makana to find him. While investigating the missing football player, Makana meets Liz Markham, an Englishwoman, whose young daughter was snatched from her hotel room seventeen years previously. Now she returns to Cairo regularly, endlessly searching the city, to ease her guilt over her use of drugs, which she blames for her loss.

As Makana begins his search for Romario, he unearths past secrets, corruption and murder. The novel has a great sense of place; with a teeming, crowded, noisy Cairo virtually a character in itself. The extremes of wealth and poverty, the past which intrudes on a brash, almost obscene, sense of entitlement from the new rich, and the generally accepted levels of government and police corruption, all combine to create a cacophony of noise and you can really visualise the small, winding streets and bazaars. Makana himself is, of course, an outsider and you have that threat of Sudan and the past he left behind, also really important to the plot and to him as a character. I will certainly look forward to reading the next in this series.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

One cannot help but be curious about the author of this politically astute, perceptive, and atmospheric thriller police procedural mystery set in Cairo. One actually wants to shade one’s eyes from the sun, and spit the sand from one’s tongue. Parker Bilal, pseudonym for Britain-born Jamal Mahjoub, has written several novels before this popular series, among them Travelling with Djinns ( Viajando con djinns) and The Drift Latitudes as well as historical novels about major moments in political or scientific upheaval. He is not a lightweight. There is depth in his portrayal of a Sudanese national in Egypt as the key character for this series.

"The light sand swirled across the bare tarmac like smoke, as if the wind were intent on swallowing up the road, wiping away man’s futile endeavors to tame nature and return this place to the wilderness it was meant to be.”

This quote comes in Chapter 33, but in some way it carries with it the sense of the whole novel.

“Off to their right was evidence of what the future held in store for the city as it expanded, growing like some unsightly tumor into the unblemished desert. Clusters of buildings scattered along the roadside provided housing for workers employed in the isolated industrial complexes build by the government to relieve pressure on the capital. Eventually all these dots would be joined up into one big sprawl…the warm desert air blew through the open windows, bringing with it the scent of lost kingdoms…”

A luxury housing complex was being built in the desert, meant to be self-sufficient with golf courses, and swimming pools, surrounded by perimeter fences and security guards, but “The wind had picked up and sand had built into drifts that covered the road almost completely in places...the ochre landscape featured windblown and withered palms with fronds snapping in the air like switches, and the barbed wire hummed in the air as if charged with electricity.” Sounds a little like the uncompleted basement tombs that crater previously undeveloped Irish seaside vistas described by Tana French in Broken Harbor. Overbuilding and underthinking: two common characteristics of unreasonably optimistic real estate financiers around the world in the last decades, even in Cairo.

The not-improbable mystery is two-fold and appears connected. A British woman is tortured and murdered, and a famous soccer star goes missing. Various moneyed factions are warring for turf, the Islamists are seeking control over the more secular police force, and the foreigner is the daughter of a member of Britain’s House of Lords. Bilal uses a big canvas and paints Cairo as the international city it is. Asking around yields tiny clues that finally add up.

If I had any complaint, it would be that there were too many words. But I liked the view we get of modern Egypt and its stressors, the food, the desert. I look forward to more of Parker Bilal. He writes with sophistication, assurance, and deep sense about living on earth.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a 4.5 star book for me. Makana is a Sudanese ex-cop who fled his country and ends up in Cairo. To get by he works as a private investigator. Makana is described as a scruffy character, living in a precarious, slapped together house on a riverbank - all he can (barely) afford. When he gets behind on his rent, his landlady, a widow with several children, sends one of them up the power pole to disconnect his electricity.

One day Makana has a well-dressed visitor. He is the right hand man of one of the wealthiest men in Egypt, Saad Hanafi, who wants Makana to find the missing star player from his football (soccer) team. At the same time, Makana meets a desolate British woman looking for her daughter missing since she was seven years old and disappeared in a near by market. For reasons I never quite understood, Makana becomes convinced that the two disappearances, though many years apart, are connected.

The Cairo of Makana is corrupt (not a surprise) and delapidated. Everywhere Makana's investigations lead him are studies in contrast - either super luxurious, private and gated communities, or dirty, impoverished and dangerous places. Makana has big losses in his past that we learn about in this book. He is still pursued by Sudanese militia members who forced his exile. Yet despite his poverty and constant threats from all sorts, Makana is an upbeat man with a keen intelligence, which makes this series attractive and one I will read more of.

[Lisa Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad that this was book of the month for one of the reading groups I've joined. I don't know very much about Egypt & Sudan in recent decades and the book gives, what feels, a real sense of the regions' people and culture.
It is a great background to a complex mystery detective style story, and I will be reminding myself to make time to read the next in the series

[Karen Siddall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year is 1998, and former police inspector Makana, a refugee from his native Sudan, lives on a rickety houseboat on the Nile outside Cairo. He fled his country years earlier when it became too dangerous for him and his family under the radical Islamic regime that had recently overthrown the previous government. He ekes out a bare subsistence working as a private investigator while mourning the loss of his wife and daughter, who didn't survive their escape. His fortunes have the opportunity to change for the better when he is hired to find a missing soccer star.

Adil Romario has been missing for over two weeks without a word or sighting of one of Cairo’s favorite sones. It is as if the young man has disappeared off the face of the Earth. The Dreem Team's owner, Saad Hanafi, is desperate to find Adil for his club's success and personal reasons. Hanafi wasn't always on the right side of the law, and old enemies may be behind the young man's disappearance.

As Makana delves into the mystery, he discovers there may be a link between Adil's disappearance and that of the young daughter of an Englishwoman who went missing 17 years earlier. When the Englishwoman is found dead, Makana, with some support from a friend on the local police force, two agents from Britain's Special Branch out of London, and a young, local reporter trying to make a name for himself, digs deeper and further afield, coming to the realization that Hanafi isn't telling him everything he needs to know to find the missing soccer star.

THE GOLDEN SCALES is a complex and intriguing historical mystery set in moody, atmospheric Cairo. The descriptions of place drew me into the story, where the writing and plot gripped me and never let go. The characters who populate the pages are colorful and well-drawn. I could easily visualize their dress, manner of speech, and gestures. I was invested in Makana's success as if it were my own. The story is action-filled, and Makana investigates like a pro, so I was quite satisfied when the resolution came.

THE GOLDEN SCALES is the first book in the Makana Mystery series by Parker Bilal, a pseudonym of renowned author Jamal Mahjoub, and was originally published in 2012. Currently, there are six novels in the series, the last of which was published in 2017. I recommend this book to mystery readers that would like an intriguing, well-crafted story with historical and political subplots enveloped in a setting that comes alive on the page.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a bit of a sucker for a strong sense of place, and culture I was intrigued by the Makana series, and lucky enough to get the second book - DOGSTAR RISING for review. But this seemed to me to be a series that should begin at the very beginning, so I shouted myself the first book, THE GOLDEN SCALES.

In terms of sense of place, and the society in which the book is set, it was extremely well done. The ancient city of Cairo is not just the backdrop for the story, it inhabits the action. There's a physical feeling of the souks, and alleys, the dark corners in which the unknown lurks. Part fascinating and compelling, part frightening and threatening, THE GOLDEN SCALES paints Cairo as a place in which people could disappear. Some willingly, some not. It also paints Cairo as a place that provides some refuge for Makana, a former Sudanese policeman, who lives physically and emotionally on the outskirts of the society to which he fled when things in his homeland got very dangerous.

That idea of Makana, a refugee from violence, ex-policeman now living and working on the fringes, as the person that one of the most powerful, wealthy and dodgy men in Cairo would turn to when a player from his team goes missing sort of makes sense, just as the fact that the missing player is treated as a son of Saad Hanafi, gangster, developer, father, and man with a very chequered past, means that the choice of investigator doesn't make sense. There's obviously a reason buried deep in the mire of those who work for and against Hanafi, and somewhere in the middle of a corrupt and compromised political and policing system. In the middle of all of this an Englishwoman returns to Cairo, still searching for the daughter that has been missing now for many years.

Needless to say this is a complex plot, with Makana at the centre of the swirling current day events, dealing with his own past and an overriding sense of loss and guilt that he battles on a daily basis. His personal story is slowly revealed as is the truth about a missing Football Player who is more than he seems, an ageing Gangster who is both more and less than he seems, a daughter with secrets, and close colleagues of all who aren't as straightforward as they seem.

THE GOLDEN SCALES is a beautiful balancing act. The bleakness of the place, the society, the state of the world in which Makana operates is matched sometimes by the bleakness of his mood, and lightened frequently by a dry, acerbic observational wit which is quiet, subdued and often cutting. A thriller set in an Islamic world, the story touches on the volatility of power, religion, influence and corruption with restraint, intelligence and expertise.

What really works in THE GOLDEN SCALES is the balance between plot, character, events and place. The plot is persuasive and believable, incorporating the reality of current day scenarios where conflicts cause personal disruption and refugees who must find a way in a new world, whilst dealing with the demons from their past. The characters are compelling, human, brave, damaged, thoughtful, introspective, forceful, good, bad and the whole thing. One of the particular aspects of the characterisations that I appreciated was the idea that everyone, both the good and the bad, was nuanced. Everyone has their good and bad sides, and you could see the reasons why they took the path that they chose. The events and the place are inextricably linked, although the sense of place was all pervading. Needless to say, THE GOLDEN SCALES bodes very well for anyone who wants their thriller / crime fiction layered, thoughtful, instructive and clever, whilst not letting up on the thrills and chills.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/revie...

[Steven Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most Middle East specialists would agree that Egypt is a key component if Middle East peace is ever too achieved. Therefore, any insight into that country is well worth pursuing even if it is in a mystery format. Jamal Mahjoub, writing under the pseudonym Parker Bilal is just the writer to bring insights from that perspective. Having been brought up in Khartoum, Sudan and lived in Cairo his feel for the people and culture of the region is something he draws upon in his first Makana mystery, entitled THE GOLDEN SCALES. The story begins in 1981 before the assassination of Anwar Sadat by the Muslim Brotherhood and then jumps to 1998. The narrative takes place during the increasingly autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak that is dominated by the Egyptian intelligence and military communities who reign supreme in everyday Egyptian society. It is a time when the “Arab Spring” is a reformist fantasy and repression and poverty are the order of the day.

At the outset, Bilal offers an insider’s look into a missing person’s situation and a murder investigation. He has the reader witness the underside of Cairo’s economic and social structure as we confront Egyptian gangsterism and corporate crime as the 20th century begins to draw to a close. Employing a former police inspector, named Makana, who has his own demons that relate to his experiences in Sudan where his wife and daughter were killed, we meet a driven man who believes that no matter the consequences for himself, the law must be up held for society to function properly. Once Makana begins to oppose the Islamic fundamentalism that emerges in Sudan he is forced to immigrate to Egypt. Bilal lives on a rickety wooden house boat on the Nile and from that base he launches a series of investigations that rub the gangster, intelligence, and corporate worlds of Cairo in the wrong way. The background history Bilal presents is very accurate as he creates a number of characters that interact with Makana to tell his story. Bilal puts together a plot that reflects the political and economic upheaval under the repressive regime of Hosni Muburak that Egypt still has not overcome to this day.

Bilal creates an eclectic group of characters for Makana to work with and sometimes cope. The story revolves around the disappearance of a four year old child in 1981 and the murder of her mother seventeen years later; the disappearance of Aldi Romario, a national soccer favorite; the machination of Saad Hanabi, a former gangster and now one of the richest men in Egypt; Sami Barakat, an unemployed journalist; Vronsky, the former Russian soldier and intelligence agent; Soraya Hanafi, the heiress to the family fortune; Daud Bulati, a former partner of the Hanafi’s who becomes an Islamic revolutionary; and Okasha, a police inspector in Cairo. There are a number of other important individuals who appear but machinations among those named form the core of the narrative.

Makana is hired by Saad Hanafi to locate his star player, Aldi Romario who has gone missing from the soccer team which he owns. Makana’s investigation has numerous twists and turns as he theorizes how the disappearance of the child, the murder of her mother, and the disappearance of Adil are all related. In developing the story, Bilal periodically alternates chapters stepping back from the criminal investigation to events in the Sudan seven years before. We learn about Makana and the plight of his family in the context of the Sudanese civil war caused by the rise of Islamic extremism.

Throughout the novel the reader is exposed to what the citizens of Cairo must deal with on a daily basis, as Makana remarks early on that in Cairo, “life was lived on the streets.” The teeming masses, the never ending poverty, the lack of civil rights are all part of the burden that most Egyptians share. The novel will incorporate the Egyptian intelligence branch, the SSI; Sudanese “supposed” law enforcement officers, jihad, the breakdown of the Egyptian welfare network, and the violence that is Cairo. For a murder mystery the book contains exceptional prose as Bilal has written a number of other novels before embarking on his Makana series. The plot line has tremendous depth and I challenge any reader to try and figure how the novel concludes. This book was recommended to me by a friend, to whom I am grateful as I have already begun to read the second installment of the Makana series, DOGSTAR RISING.

[K.J. Charles]

Egypt-set mystery. Well written, vividly descriptive, the backstory was terrifying and gripping and important about religious fanaticism in a collapsing state. I just don't think this is a natural mystery author: the crime solving was rather of the 'pay random visit to cafe, waiter has vivid recollection of a random conversation decades ago that gives you the next piece of plot' type.

Author has written non-detective stuff as Jamal Mahjoub and is a very superior writer so will check out his non-tec stuff instead.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most interesting mysteries I've read for a while, set apart by Bilal's convincing creation of characters and place.

[Lakis Fourouklas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could be read as a melancholy song for Cairo. The author, using a simple case of a disappearance, or maybe abduction, for his starting point, he travels the reader back in time and he show-lights to him the everyday life of the Egyptian capital. He does that in a somewhat light way, using a sense of humor that borders to irony, but that’s not enough to hide the reality; a reality that’s as bleak as the lives of the poor people in the country.
So, he talks about dirty cops and corrupted state officials, who have a lot of close ties with the rich the powerful, about the new dirty money that has been laundered in the country for the sake of some questionable characters from the former Soviet Union, and which allows certain people to make or to follow their own rules, about the city poor whose lives get from bad to worse, about the rich that reside in huge fortress-like houses, choosing to ignore all the suffering in the streets, and about the fear and the darkness that surrounds the local show biz, the sex and the drugs trade.
This novel reminds me of a crime story and a social commentary at the same time, and it’s just as well that it does, if I may add. The epicenter of the plot is not so much the crime, as is the society in which it took place. A society, that back then, in 1998, was just as divided as it is now.
It all begins when some bodyguards of sorts, arrive at the boat where Makana, an ex-cop from the Sudan and now refugee lives. The men simply state to him that he has to follow them because their boss wants to meet him, and he just obeys, since he knows too well that he has no word in the matter anyway. As he’ll soon come to find out, the boss is none other than Saad Hanafi, a man rumored to be so rich as to own the biggest part of the aristocratic suburb of Heliopolis. Makana knows Hanafi is one of those men that “sell dreams”, one of which is his football team, the most popular in Egypt. Now he wants him, of all people, to discover the whereabouts of Adil Romario, the biggest star of the team, who’s gone missing ten days ago. Makana, though reluctantly, accepts the mission, since he could really use some money right now, and of that his new employer has aplenty.
Thus he starts his investigation; an investigation that will bring him time and again face to face with danger, but which will also lead him into some of the most infamous streets of the city, into dens and into luxurious establishments, and that will also make him realize that the people who really cared about Romario were but a few; most of the ones who knew him actually were not that hurt that he was gone. As the case will start getting more and more complicated and the good detective will find himself moving from one dead end to the next, something else will happen that will complicate things even more; he’ll meet a woman from England, who’s been searching for the last seventeen years for her missing daughter and who’ll soon end up dead, murdered perhaps by the very same man who took her child. But who would that be? That’s the big question that Makana sets himself to find the answer to.
This is a very good crime novel, written in a nice straightforward manner, and which travels the reader to some places that look familiar and strange at the same time. The author seems not only to pen the psychological profiles of his characters, but of a whole city as well. And he talks about that city’s essence, the one which as foreigners to its culture, we are by ourselves unable to see. A job well done.

[Felice · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the fun things about mysteries is the wealth of peculiar characters they always have---without any of that cases of cutes crap you can find so easily in general fiction. There are the savory and unsavory, heroes and villains and then the Damon Runyon-esque populace. You’d be hard pressed to find a mystery that doesn’t follow that pattern no matter where that book hails from. These broad types are one of the delights of The Golden Scales by Parker Bilal.


Cairo is the setting for this new mystery, The Golden Scales, with a gallery of interesting characters. So great setting, great people we are half way to reading happiness right? To finish this book off on the plus side there is also a detective who is outside of the ordinary and a plot that twists and turns. We have a winner.


Our detective is Makana a former Sudanese policeman. Forced to leave Sudan under a cloud, Makana squeezes out a hand to mouth living as a private detective in Cairo. As much as he would like to he doesn’t have the luxury of only taking cases from the righteous and innocent. That is how he ends up employed by the corrupt and underhanded entrepreneur Saad Hanafi. Makana is hired to find the sleazy Hanafi’s missing star soccer player. During his investigation Makana is quickly rubbing elbows with hucksters, failed starlets, icky film directors, Russian gangsters, Muslim extremists, a fraught mother searching for a long missing child, an old enemy from his past and a murderer. Despite increasing danger, threats and painful memories Makana is dogged in his pursuit of a killer.


Bilal packs his plot with details and loads on the crime novel picturesque. One of my favorites is Hanafi’s soccer stadium decorated with statues of gods who all look remarkably like Hanafi. Bilal creates a mood of barely contained chaos that suits his underbelly picture of Cairo. There is more to The Golden Scales than a reader usually finds in gumshoe fiction. Bilal by way the charismatic Makana and his adventures amid the shady and desperate has plenty to say about Cairo, politics and the economics of survival.


P.S. Bilal is the pseudonym of author Jamal Mahjoub author of seven books including The Drift Latitudes.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makana is a Sudanese political refugee living in Cairo, using his past homicide police detective experience in the Sudan to scrape a living as a consultant to the Cairo police and occasional PI work. One day in 1998 he's hired by Hanafi, a powerful and wealthy business man, owner of the champion soccer team, to find Adil, his missing star player. At the same time, the owner of his favorite restaurant asks Makana to speak to an Englishwoman sitting in his restaurant to see if he can help her as she seems to be in trouble, if only from herself. The woman, Liz Markham, tells him the story of how her 4 year old daughter disappeared in Cairo 17 years earlier, in 1981, and how she returns every year to look for her. These seemingly unrelated disappearances shortly begin to appear related, especially after Liz Markham is found tortured and murdered. The deeper Makana digs, the more the tragedies of his own life in the Sudan rise to haunt him, and the political and religious struggle for control of Egypt reminds him of that which contributed to the events that led to exile.

Neither Cairo nor the resort areas along the Red Sea are given a glowing portrayal, though references are made certain timeless vistas, and the Khan al-Khalili is so well described, I felt as if I was walking its warren of streets again. I recognized so much of the Cairo described - the noise, pollution, omnipresent cigarette smoke, honking, and sandy grit, the modern against the ancient, and the feeling that it is a constant battle to keep the desert from reclaiming it all.

This is a dark, gritty, rather brutal detective murder mystery, taking you into the underbelly of the the Mubarak years when militant islam was on the rise, where powerful adversaries set out to destroy each other using any means, and how the innocent and a soccer team get caught in the middle. It's also the first in a series. I am curious to see what happens to Makana especially.

[Sophie Breese · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. A great find. I worked in Egypt for a while and this felt v familiar. It’s funny but also very dark. V compelling.

[Umut Çalışan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap pek çok yönden, okuduğum bir çok polisiyeden iyi. Türün takipçilerinin de bildiği gibi, polisiye romanlar çoğu kez edebi açıdan zayıf olurlar. Sayfalarca karakter tahlilleri, karşılıklı çıkarımlar, aforizmalar, tasvirler pek bulunmaz. Hatta alıntı yapacak tek bir cümle bile bulamazsınız kimi zaman. Çünkü o romanın işi önce aksiyondur ve okur bu durumdan şikâyetçi değildir. Öte yandan polisiyeye edebiyat bulaştırmak da her babayiğidin de harcı değildir. Yapacağım, edebi derinliği olan bir polisiye yazacağım derken, ismi lazım değil ünlü bir Türk polisiye yazarı gibi kendinizi fırında lüfer tarifi verirken, Rum meyhanelerinde meze kültürü geyiği yaparken bulabilirsiniz. Ama neyse ki Kahire'de Kayıp öyle değil. Ilgın'ın ellerinde gördüğünüz bu kitap, sadece bir iki yerde dozunu kaçırsa da, genel olarak polisiye ve edebiyatın sihirli bir iksir gibi tam tadında harmanlandığı bir kitap olmuş. http://www.umutcalisan.com/2017/02/ka...

[Always Pink · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has a wonderful eye for colorful details and feisty characters. His descriptions and cameos really make modern Cairo come alive on the page. His protagonist is likeable, an ex-cop and private investigator, who lives on a ramshackle house boat on the Nile – a broken man with a dark past, but incorruptible and as fearless as they get. Thus I had high hopes for this one, and found it a real pity that the author spoils it all, after successfully setting the scene, by adding unnecessary layers and twisting subplots unto a story that could and probably should have been pretty straightforward. The book ends up being at least a hundred pages too long (and who hasn't seen the big final "surprise" right from its very beginning must have been blind...!) To liven things up, quite a bit of unneccessary violence, torture and paramilitary action are added to its final chapters, thereby granting our hero a macholike bravado I didn't especially care for neither.

[Gert]

This is Parker Bilal's debut novel, but then it's not his real name and he published a couple under his own name. This one introduces Makana, a former policeman in Sudan who is a private eye in Cairo now. He is hired by a billionaire to find his star soccer player, but also gets distracted when he meets a British woman who is looking for her daughter who disappeared 17 years earlier at age 4 in Cairo and is found dead in her hotel room the next day. The plot is pretty complex and involves a bit of reccent Egyptian history, but not too much, and a lot of couleur locale. I enjoyed it a lot.

[Vasilis Kalandaridis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Parker Bilal είναι Αγγλοσουδανός,ο ήρωας του Makana ήρθε με φόρα να μας κρατήσει συντροφιά για πολλά χρόνια.Περιμένω με αγωνία τη συνέχεια της ιστορίας του.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it adheres to the conventions of a mystery, THE GOLDEN SCALES is also an exploration of Egyptian social and political collapse. The mystery intertwines three stories. First, there is the mysterious disappearance of soccer star Adil Romario. His spectacular rise from a childhood of obscure poverty to national celebrity is due to the attentive grooming of DreemTeem owner and wealthy developer, Saad Hanafi. Second, there is the abduction seventeen years ago of Alice Markham, the 4 year old daughter of an English recovering drug addict visiting Cairo. Finally, there is the story of the private detective and occasional consultant to the Egyptian police, Makana. Makana's story is told gradually. He lives on a dilapidated houseboat, and is an expatriot from Khartoum. Of the 3 stories, his past is the most interesting, and it is his understated wit that holds the reader's interest.

The terrorist attack at Luxor is referenced – an event that occurs two months prior to the present-day story. The event helps define a background of past and present contradictions. The British private investigator of the Markham abduction complained that he received no cooperation from the authorities because of anti-Western sentiment. “The Egyptians were making him suffer because they were embarrassed by the case and resented being questioned about it by their former colonial rulers.” Makana focuses on political motives rather than xenophobia. Yet, his own experience counters this attempt at rational explanation. His wife Muna once fiercely declared: “People like you and me, they hate us...because we can see through them. Because we choose not to live our lives according to the norms of the seventh century.”

A social context is laid out with similar care. El Gouna is the fading fishing village where Adil grew up. A luxury resort development in the area has stalled due to the economic depression. The result is a vacuum of disappointed expectations and ugly rubble.

Parker Bilal is a pseudonym for Jamal Mahjoub. I have not read any of his other works, but will certainly add his name to my list of authors to be explored. THE GOLDEN SCALES is an intriguing introduction to a complicated culture undergoing disturbing changes.

[Elaine Tomasso · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the background to this novel - the political shenanigans in both Sudan and Egypt - and I liked Makana as the hero - a decent man in indecent circumstances. The plot was quite convoluted involving high finance, old bitter rivalries, corrupt cops, violent Russians, questions of paternity, Islamic fundamentalism and a dead Englishwoman and should have been gripping but it wasn't. I can't put my finger on exactly what is wrong but the novel just plods along to a conclusion. I didn't feel any tension or a desperate need to find out what was going to happen next but I finished it. I don't think I would buy another in the series as there are better books out there to spend my money on but I'm glad of the insight this one gave me into another world.

[Catarina Brandão · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this compelling narrative, the author vividly portrays the harsh realities of Egypt and Sudan under the grip of Islamic radicalism. Through detailed descriptions, readers are drawn into a world of systemic repression and the profound injustices inflicted upon those who dare to defy the corrupt regime. Special attention is given to individuals who choose to follow constitutional principles rather than submitting to religious dogma.

Makana, a former police officer turned private investigator, is now living in poverty, barely able to afford rent or food. Once a victim of this same radicalism, he witnessed the brutal murder of his family at the hands of a military blinded by religious fanaticism.
As the narrative unfolds, the reader follows Makana closely as he investigates the mysterious and tragic deaths of resilient Arab women, university Professors, and police officers who refuse to abandon intellectual job pursuits, the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution to their university students, or seeking the truth behind these macabre mysteries, respectively, despite the dangers.

Running parallel to these chilling investigations is the disappearance of a famous football player, linked to one of Cairo’s oligarchs, and the suspicious death of a British woman, whose child vanished years earlier. Makana's relentless pursuit of justice in these intertwined cases comes at great personal cost, as he risks his own life to uncover the truth.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A child goes missing during her mother's drug induced blackout, and her mother spends years coming back to Cairo trying to find her. Adil Romario, national soccer hero in Egypt is missing and Makana, an ex-police inspector from Sudan who had lost his family and forced to seek refuge in Cairo, is engaged by an elderly Egyptian tycoon to find him.

What are his investigations bringing to the surface? Whose feathers are being ruffled, who has the most to lose and who has the most to gain? Everyone has secrets they're trying to protect.

Before long, Makana finds himself being followed as he tries to trace the last whereabouts of Adil, the people he knew and the places he had been to. He catches the attention of an ambitious journalist who seems to be shadowing him, and the local police honcho who may be using Makana to fuel his own career advancement. In the meantime, the mother of the long missing child is found tortured and murdered just days after Makana has met her by chance at a cafe he frequents. Something about her murder disturbs him, and he finds himself trying to find answers, and in doing so, puts himself in the way of violent danger from multiple fronts.

A very thrilling and satisfying read.

[Balthazar Lawson · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are three story lines here surrounding a private investigator called Makana, an ex-police inspector from Sudan, now living and working in Cairo.

The first story, the main story line and catalyst for the book, is about Makana being hire by a wealthy business man, who owns a football team, to help find one of his missing players. But it's not just any player, he is national hero figure. The businessman is a former criminal, in many ways he still is.

The second story is about an English woman who's four year old daughter disappeared 17 years previously. She keeps coming back to Cairo to search for her daughter. She runs into Makana once and it changes everything.

The last story line is the story of Makana and how and why he ended up in Cairo. It's a background that runs through the entire book.

All these story lines end up intertwined in a rather convoluted way that is totally reminiscent of a TV soap opera and that is where this book is a let down. In the end none of this explains why the football player disappeared. We do find out what happened to him but it's barely related to anything that is revealed in the book previously.

For me it dragged when and just didn't grab me. I wanted to put the book down but I always force myself to finish what I start.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you ever stop looking for your missing child? No, of course you don't.

Makana is a private detective in Cairo having fled the Sudan where he was a police inspector. He has two cases about missing persons: an eminent footballer and the other a child who disappeared from a local bazaar many years ago. There are themes of fathers and daughters, and mothers and daughters, their bonds and their flash points. The characters were vividly portrayed particularly Raga the owner of a junk shop in the bazaar.

All this is set in a Cairo where corruption is the norm, women are pressurised to abandon Western dress for modest Islamic dress and anti-creationists make difficulties for evolutionists. I loved the way that Cairo life sang through the pages of this story. They ate beans for breakfast, kofte in the evening and tahini at almost any time in between. There were passing mentions of the country’s recent past: President Nasser and the all-important dam, the West Banks massacre, the pyramids and the ancient traditional gods.

I hope that the rest of the series lives up to this promising start.

[Amanda Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makana is a former homicide detective in Khartoum now living as a refugee at the bottom of society in Cairo. One day one of Egypt's richest men hires him to find a missing person and so Makana is plunged into a world of gangsters, shady businessmen, wannabe film stars and all manner of social, political and personal corruption. It is not written in a hardboiled style at all (there is quite a bit of humour) but the story has definite modern noir overtones, kind of "'Chinatown' in Cairo." Makana himself has demons and there are flashbacks to the situation in Sudan that lead to personal tragedy and then exile.

I'm not an expert on Egypt by any means but I worked there for a few months and have taken an interest in reading about it, and I thought aspects of the place were beautifully evoked in the writing and characters. It's not just "generic exotic location" but specific and knowing. The Golden Scales is set in 1998 and I gather is to be a series taking us up to the present day so I look forward to the return of Makana in another book.

[judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started with a good puzzle and a sort of detective who lives on a broken down houseboat. That would be in Egypt not Ft.Lauderdale (Slip F-18, Bahia Mar). That's when I started to get a teeny bit lost. The mystery wouldn't be one Travis would like--no girls, a buddy who seems like he could be interesting if he showed up more and all sorts of criminal activities surrounded by religion and politics. Secrets and corruption everywhere. Trust no one. Most scenery urban, dirty and ugly. So not my thing. I did find one sequence I particularly disliked--an extensive flashback into the detective's earlier life when violence is visited upon him. I didn't think it was well done and even had it been that device has been overused. The author is evidently a respected novelist. He's obviously not my choice as a mystery writer but he may be yours.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a familiar plot we have Makana being hired by a billionaire to find a missing star soccer player who is like a son to him but there are hints of thugs and gangsters as well as terrorists mingling in the background. It's a very interesting story with lots of surprises at the end. Bilal's descriptions of the surroundings and the torpor of life in Cairo are as good as any video. Makana is the most unassuming guy. He's almost like an investigator monk. He lives frugally and modestly and is often underestimated. A very likeable character who has been wronged but gets up each day and goes on living. I've read the first and third in the series so all that's left for me is the second. I hope Bilal keeps this series alive. It's a very different and fascinating look into life in Egypt.

[Judy Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harika bir polisiye. Kahire atmosferi çok başarılı, insanı içine alacak denli canlı anlatılmış. Çeviri zaten Ali Cevat Akkoyunlu'ya ait olduğu için kusursuz. Makana da acılı, işini bilen, sevilesi bir kahraman. Yarın ikinci macerasını okuyacağım. Çok sevdim.

[Kees van Duyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Onder het pseudoniem Parker Bilal begon de Brits-Soedanese auteur Jamal Mahjoub in 2012 met het publiceren van een aantal misdaadverhalen met privédetective Makana. De serie, die zich afspeelt in de Egyptische hoofdstad Caïro, bestaat uit zes delen. Alleen de eerste drie daarvan, te beginnen met De donkere straten van Caïro, zijn in het Nederlands vertaald. Voor werk dat hij onder zijn eigen naam schreef heeft hij een aantal nominaties en prijzen gewonnen.

Oud-inspecteur Makana is jaren geleden vanuit Sudan naar Egypte gevlucht en om inkomen te hebben werkt hij er als privédetective. Op een dag wordt hij benaderd door de schatrijke, maar ook beruchte zakenman Hanafi, met het verzoek de sinds kort vermiste voetballer Adil Romario op te sporen. Ongeveer tegelijkertijd ontmoet hij een vrouw wier dochter zeventien jaar eerder plotseling verdween en waar ze sindsdien voortdurend naar op zoek is. Makana gaat aan de slag en krijgt tijdens zijn naspeuringen te maken met een Russische crimineel. Door dit alles komen nogal pijnlijke herinneringen bovendrijven.

De vrij lange proloog waar het verhaal mee begint doet exact wat een goede inleiding hoort te doen: hij maakt de lezer nieuwsgierig, zorgt voor spanning en laat weten wat er – in dit geval 1981 – gebeurd is. Hierna komt inspecteur Makana – het is inmiddels zeventien jaar later – in beeld. Hij is degene om wie de plot voornamelijk draait en heel geleidelijk wordt steeds meer over zijn persoon en zijn veelbewogen verleden bekendgemaakt. Het is prima om niet meteen alles over deze markante, maar sympathieke detective te weten te komen, want hierdoor blijft je gevoel van nieuwsgierigheid naar hem en wat hem in Sudan is overkomen tot in de eindfase gehandhaafd. Ook de twee vermissingen waar hij zich mee bezighoudt, blijven de lezer boeien, hoewel hij, net als Makana, aanvoelt dat ze beide met elkaar te maken hebben.

Ondanks het behoorlijke tempo waarin het verhaal zich afspeelt, lijkt de privédetective geen vorderingen te maken. Dat is echter schijn. Want stukje bij beetje komt hij almaar dichter bij de uiteindelijke oplossing en hoe Bilal dit hem laat aanpakken is uiterst subtiel. Dit gaat allemaal gepaard met diverse veelal bedaarde plotwendingen en onverwachte ontwikkelingen, waardoor verschillende spannende momenten ontstaan. De ontknoping bevat enkele scènes waarin de snelheid wordt opgevoerd en als gevolg daarvan ontstaat wat actie. Eveneens is er dan een emotioneel en enigszins aangrijpend en triest hoofdstuk waarin nog meer over Makana’s geschiedenis onthuld wordt.

De schrijfstijl van Bilal is bij vlagen poëtisch en regelmatig maakt hij gebruik van mooi geformuleerde zinnen. Hij schrijft tevens invoelend en zonder dat het er dik bovenop ligt heeft hij de politieke ontwikkelingen die Egypte in die periode in zijn greep hield in dit thrillerdebuut verwerkt. Dit komt de geloofwaardigheid van het verhaal zonder meer ten goede. De auteur waakt er echter voor dat het boek belerend of maatschappijkritisch overkomt. Verre van zelfs, want het Makana-avontuur is erg toegankelijk en eigentijds geschreven, waarbij hij een vleugje humor en een milde vorm van cynisme niet achterwege laat.

Al met al is De donkere straten van Caïro een van begin tot eind boeiende detective met een aantal interessante en intrigerende personages. Alleen daarom is het al jammer dat er maar drie delen met Makana in het Nederlands vertaald zijn.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first in the six-book "Makana" detective series starts with a prologue in Cairo, circa 1981 in which a drugged out young Englishwoman loses her 4-year-old daughter. Fast-forward to Cairo 1998, a few months after the Luxor terrorist attacks, and we meet Makana, a down-on-his-heels private detective behind on the rent for the rickety barge he lives on. Once a proud police detective in Sudan, he is now a refugee in Cairo, having fled his homeland following the rise of Islamists to power and the death of his wife and daughter.

Makana is hired by an Egyptian tycoon with a murky past to track down the missing star of the soccer team he owns. This leads him into deep waters, and a colorful cast of characters, including a sleazy film producer, and less sleazy actress, a Russian ex-paratrooper looking to build a luxury resort, a sinister member of the intelligence services, an intrepid journalist, an Italian soccer manager, an enigmatic bazaar shopkeeper, and his old friend on the police force. He also runs into the Englishwoman, who has been returning to Cairo for years trying to find out what happened to her daughter.

Naturally, everything is connected -- but the book suffers in that there's no real reason for Makana to believe them to be connected, other than a gut feeling. Unfortunately, a bigger flaw is that most readers will have figured out quite quickly what happened to the missing girl and will be waiting for the bulk of the book for Makana to get there. Fortunately, the plot around the missing soccer player does get quite complicated and interesting, and has a solid surprise ending. 

The sights and sounds of the Cairo of two decades ago come alive quite nicely, especially whenever food is introduced. While some of the supporting characters are too broadly sketched, most are convincing, from Makana's sly landlady to the actress's overhearing cousin. Overall, the book's flaws are those of a first-time mystery writer, but the atmosphere is excellent and I'll definitely track down the next in the series.