Jamal MahjoubReseñas

Enjoyed plot & characters but felt the ending was a little too quick- will try another in the series

I didn’t realise that this was the second book in a series when I picked it up so I am not sure what or how much i’ve missed or its effects on this book, but; I’m sure as hell going to find out! Book one, The Divinities has now firmly cemented itself to the top of my tbr pile!

As the police are called to a gruesome discovery of a severed head found on the London Underground, Crane and Drake are hired by her childhood acquaintance and author, Marco Foulkes, to investigate the disappearance of a foreign university student Howeida Almanara.

As their investigation begins it is not long before it becomes apparent that both cases are connected, and not just connected but personal to former Detective Inspector Cal Crane and a case he was working undercover on four years ago. The decapitated head was wrapped in newspaper, a very specific page from the newspaper, the headline of the article reading – “Finger of Suspicion Pointed at Rising Star Met Police. Links to Organised Crime.” The rising star? None other than DI Crane!

The investigation of the unidentified head is being led by Crane’s former police partner, newly promoted DI Kelly Marsh. Unofficially they share case details helping both Crane in his new career as a private investigator and Marsh’s official investigation.

As the pressure grows to crack the case more details emerge, details and evidence that points the finger of blame straight at Crane.

Can PI’s Drake and Crane, with the help of Marsh, clear his name and lead them to the real criminals in time?

Set in London this book brings the city to life across the pages, from the high end of some of the expensive boroughs to the darker side of the city and its forgotten individuals who make their beds in doorways. It takes you on a journey into some of the seedier sides of the city as well as the gang culture who always seem three steps ahead of the police, touching on all to real problems such as human trafficking, corruption, organised crime and exploitation that go on not just in the fictional London but the real city as well.

The book is filled with multicultural fictional characters, some good, some pure evil wrapped in flesh and bone, all blended with a storyline that could just as easily feature in the True Crime genre with a compulsive, high tension plot and an ending that will drive you insane! I just hope the next book isn’t going to be too much of a wait because it has certainly left me needing more and I can guarantee that you will feel the same once you have turned that last page!

This is a real slice of life wrapped in fiction.

The Heights will be published on 03 September 2020 and is available for pre-order now.

tres prenant dès le début, mais très vite embrouillé dans des considérations psychologiques qui ont leur origine dans les affres de la guerre islamique.

Moody and atmospheric with an engaging private detective in Cairo

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.

2009 (my review can be found on the LibraryThing page linked)
http://www.librarything.com/topic/54129#1180293

The first in a series featuring an ex-pat Sudanese policeman eking out a living as a private detective in Cairo. Having fled his country after its takeover by Islamists and the death at their hands of his wife and daughter, Markana rents a small floating structure on a riverbank and tries to earn enough to survive. He is approached by one of richest men in Cairo, one of the breed of gangsters who decide to go straight after making their fortunes. The star of his professional soccer team is missing, and, unsure of who he can trust, he wants someone to whom he has no connections otherwise. Multiple connected mysteries crop up, most prominently the murder of an Englishwoman who comes to Cairo each year to search for the daughter who disappeared almost 20 years ago as a young child.

The story is intense and interesting, and Cairo is certainly an unusual venue for the average English-speaking mystery reader. The action primarily takes place among people on two economic levels: the wealthy, who live in towers and barely notice people not in their own class (doesn't that sound familiar?), and the very, very poor, whose hovels often crouch at the foot of the towers. There's also quite a bit of information about the Islamist seizure of Sudan and what that meant for educated and professional people. Very rewarding reading.

823.914 MAH

Another good contribution to the Makana series. Makana is humane and likeable, his world simpathetically but honestly portrayed. I do think that the endings of this and the previous volume have fallen into the trap of over-dramatisation, not every reader wants cheap adrenaline rushes. But on the whole this remains an enjoyable series, well worth reading. 12 May 2018½

Another good offering from Parker Bilal, the third in his Makana series, combining a well written detective mystery, convincing characterisation and insight into Egyptian society. The finale is slightly over-driven, not so much in the events themselves as in the way that so many of the incidental characters are too conveniently dealt with, but as this is the first foot Bilal has put wrong in the series so far, I'll forgive him. 23 March 2018½

This is number two in a series I've had problems getting from the library. Finally I have managed to find the later ones in the series. And the novels do improve as the author becomes more confidant in his writing style and more comfortable with his main character. Certainly the series is well worth reading.

'Dogstar Rising' is an unusual mystery novel set in contemporary Egypt. Young boys are turning up dead and mutilated. In the muddle that is Eygpt's mix of cultures someone is trying to stir up trouble and blame the Coptic Christians.

Investigator Makana, a mystery man from the Sudan, a refugee form the war there, becomes involved when he sees a murder. He finds a thread linking that murder to those of the boys. Suddenly the police and state security services are breathing down his neck and all hell breaks loose.

Tightly written, the second in a series, and well worth a read for the exotic locations.

This second in the Makana series very much continues where the first left off. A well ploted criminal investigation sits within a wider portrayal of Cairo at a time when its society is close to the edge - and inexorably inching closer to that edge.. Both angles are presented in a thoughtful and unhyped way which draws this reader further in as the book proceeds. 24 October 2017.

DARK WATER by Parker Bilal is a thriller about a Makana, a private investigator with a complicated past who is drawn into doing a job for the British government and quickly the job becomes infinitely more complex, layered and more personal than Makana ever though it would.
Bilal has created this character named Makana who is a troubled man who has experienced great loss in his life, but the reader pulls for him because Makana wants to overcome his past and live for his future, it's just that his past keeps haunting him. Most every character (except a loyal and pure of heart taxi driver) Makana comes across in DARK WATER having cloudy motives, a penchant for lying, and hiding the truth through misdirection and guile. Bilal drops clues, some blatant and some quite subtle, about what is really going on; as the reader, several times I had to go back to previous scenes to grasp what Makana was figuring out. As with many book series that I have jumped into in the middle, I did find myself thinking this book would be enhanced had I read the previous books in the series.
Full of twists and double crosses, DARK WATER will keep the reader holding their breath and wondering how Makana will escape all of the traps set for him.
I received a copy of this book as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program.

These books keep getting darker, or at least that's my perception with this one. Makana has evidently built a reputation that gets him hired by some not-so-good folks, and in fact there are many not-so-good folks in this book. The backstory starts with the first Gulf War, and the looting by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait before they were pushed out. But it's set after, maybe just after, the second Gulf War under the second Bush, and the spew of dangerous characters and disillusioned idealists from that war as well, out for prizes and even more for revenge. Makana must walk a tightrope over these violent men as they each try to use him for their own purposes.

I had a few quibbles with the story. An obvious moment of cellphone sabotage goes unnoticed because Makana is so unused to cellphones, but wouldn't he have picked up on the classic manner of the maneuver?
Some dialog at the end of the book is repeated unnecessarily, pointing to careless editing. Police corruption is almost a caricature. Or maybe not. (I've never experienced Egyptian police behavior.)

There's nothing here that will derail the series for me, but it was a bit of a pull to get to the end of the story.

A superior thriller with a raft of interesting characters, an absorbing plot and a strong sense of time and place. If Sudanese ex-policeman and private investigator Markana is the main character, he is closely rivalled by Cairo itself, dark and brooding in its poverty and crime, bright and empty in its wealth, always vital. Politics and religion, greed and corruption are all examined alongside just enough human warmth and integrity to hold it together. 2 September 2017

I was eager to get this newest Bilal from the library, but then had a bit of a problem pushing through it. I just wasn't that in the mood for a dark mystery set in a dysfunctional society, as well-written as it is. But it gradually grew on me. The story was complicated, but not hard to follow, and I guessed the secrets before the reveal. I'll certainly follow the series as it grows.½

Zeer saai boek

Set in Cairo an Egyptian investigator, an ex-cop, gets involved in a project that of course gets progressively out of control and more dangerous. An enjoyable read and not too complex a story. I enjoyed the central character, the investigator Markana, who had issues but not flawed as so many of his ilk are. I was somewhat disappointed that the location, Cairo, didn't seem to figure as strongly as I'd like it to.

Would I read another? Maybe.½

Het derde boek van deze schrijver in de NOVIB serie. Het is een vervolg op de 2 eerdere misdaad romans. Parker Bilal kan goed schrijven en weet je mee te sleuren. Maar na 3 boeken is het einde wel ongeveer voorspelbaar. En helaas ook een beetje inconsistent. De chaos in Egypte wordt duidelijk weergegeven en je voelt je bij het lezen ook stoffig worden door al het woestijnzand. Helaas wordt het mysterie van de dochter ook nu niet opgelost, er wordt wel steeds naar gerefereerd zonder extra informatie. Daar zit volgens mij nog een uitstekend 4e deel in.

Oorspronkelijke titel: The Ghost Runner

This is the second book in the series by Parker Bilal with the private detective, Makana, a Sudenese exile living in a very seedy Cairo. He's asked to investigate some threatening letters and things turn very nasty. In the background are religious tensions and a serial killer.
I think I enjoyed the first book better, but this was still quite good.
3.5 stars

This is a mystery set in Cairo back in the 1980s. Macana is an outsider, a former police inspector from Sudan who didn't turn a blind eye when he should have and who so was forced to leave his country and lost everyone dear to him. He barely makes a living investigating cases the local police don't get involved with. The sense of place is extraordinary. Bilal makes Cairo seem real--rotting away before your eyes. Corruption is everywhere. Macana's investigation on behalf of a "former" criminal overlord takes him through many levels and layers of society.
The thing I found hard to believe was Macana's incredible naivety that came through in the flashbacks--it didn't seem realistic that he would continually ignore all the danger signs that should have been telling him to leave the country long before he did.
Interesting mystery story. Fabulous sense of place. Good character. 3.5 stars

Ik heb dit boek in de Nederlandse vertaling gelezen en die vertaling is bedroevend: het aantal totaal idiote beeldspraken is niet te geloven. Om enkele voorbeelden te geven "de maan zoogt de hongerige sterren" (306) of "het overtollige water uit zijn laarzen" (49) (alsof niet al het water in de laarzen overtollig is) of "blaast het water (?) de woorden terug in zijn buik". Hoe idioot kan je vertalen?
Het verhaal op zich viel ook tegen: zeker geen "magistrale" roman over oosterse wijsheid en westerse kennis.½

Thriller in Cairo met veel corruptie, Russen en mensen die elkaar naar het leven staan. Alles is toch weer anders dan het lijkt te zijn, een beetje te veel

Quite an intersting an unusual mystery set in Cairo in 2004. Makana, a Sudanese man who works as a private investigator, is asked to trace a stolen work of art by an influential and wealthy art dealer. The work has a tangled history, having vanished from Baghdad during the US invasion, and soon Makana finds himself entangled in the violent world of a powerbroker from Saddam's regime, who may be spinning new webs in Egypt under the protection of high government officials. The mystery takes a back seat to the setting, which is fascinating and almost overpoweringly rich. This is the fourth in a series that borrows from the American gumshoe tradition to explore contemporary Egypt, providing the kind of detail and texture that's missing from the news we hear (scant as it is).

Ideaal vakantieboek. Het verhaal speelt zich af rond een van oorsprong Soedanese rechercheur in Cairo die ingehuurd wordt om onderzoek te doen naar de verdwijning van een bekende voetballer. Tegelijkertijd wordt hij geconfronteerd met de moord op een Engelse vrouw die al jaren lang op zoek was naar haar dochter die tijdens een drugstrip in Cairo zo'n 17 jaar daarvoor uit haar hotelkamer verdween en nooit meer was teruggevonden. Mooie combi van mooie beschrijvingen van Cairo, interessante geschiedenis over moslimstrijd in Egypte en Soedan ten tijde van Sadat. Daarnaast ook gewoon lekker spannend verhaal. Aanrader!½