Status Updates From Sand

Things are getting a bit clearer. Cetrois probably isn't a friend but the amnesiac himself. The mine has been discovered and lost again. Cetrois (?) realizes that Helen cannot be a representative of an American cosmetics company and must be a spy. By now, Cetrois has been beaten up and hurt in other ways a handful of times.

Each chapter starts with a quote barely related ranging from the bible, Herodot, Nixon to Russ Meyer and Bruce Lee movie quotes. Not only the quotes, the whole book gives me the impression that Herrndorf tested out what else he could pack into it while keeping the label thriller. The satiric Titanic background is palpable.

1972 somewhere in North Africa in a coastal city. Weird characters in an absurd story. A police officer worried about his average IQ, a dumb attractive woman being neither, a man with amnesia, four arabs with a bag full of East German money, a spy killed on first appearance, even the 7 year old author.
Four hippies get killed in a commune. The murderer is identified by more than 30 people but denies everything.