When a Turkish laborer is stabbed to death in Frankfurt's red light district, the local police see no need to work overtime. But wisecracking private detective Kemel Kayankaya, a Turkish immigrant himself, smells a rat. The dead man wasn't the kind of guy who spent time with prostitutes. What gives? The deeper he digs, the more Kayankaya finds that the victim was a good guy, a poor immigrant just trying to look out for his family. So who wanted him dead, and why?
On the way to finding out, Kayankaya has run-ins with prostitutes and drug addicts, gets beaten up by anonymous thugs, survives a gas attack, and suffers several close encounters with a Fiat. And then there's the police cover-up he stumbles upon...
Introducing Kemal Kayankaya, a wise-cracking private detective in Frankfurt—or, as Kayankaya calls it, “the ugliest town in Germany.” As a Turkish immigrant raised by Germans, he’s regularly subjected to racism in the gritty, working class town, and getting work isn’t easy. So when his immigrant friend Rosario asks Kayankaya to protect him against some thugs demanding protection money from his restaurant, the down-and-out Kayankaya takes the job—except these are no ordinary thugs. They turn out to be battle-hardened Croatian nationalists looking to take over the rackets in Frankfurt, and they do not take kindly to Kayankaya’s interference with their plans. What ensues is a brilliant novel about organized crime, immigration, the fallout from the Balkan wars, and the madness of nationalism from one of Europe’s finest crime writers.
“Kemal Kayankaya is the ultimate outsider among hard-boiled private eyes.”--The New York Times Book Review
Love is never easy—especially when your girlfriend is an illegal Thai prostitute who has been kidnapped (again) by a gang of sex traffickers. Fortunately for the hapless fiancé, wisecracking gumshoe Kemal Kayankaya is on the case. The son of a Turkish garbage collector, he knows a thing or two about living in the ethnic fringes of the ugliest German city of them all: Frankfurt. Kayankaya plunges into the city’s underbelly, where the police don’t care if you live or die, and the powerful view an illegal alien as just another paycheck. One Man, One Murder populates its pages with unforgettable characters, whip-smart dialogue, and a connoisseur’s collection of grim details. But it is Arjouni’s dead-on description of contemporary Europe’s racial politics, vacuous nationalism, and social injustice that make his novels rise above the rest.
“Acidly funny…Kemal Kayankaya is the ultimate outsider among hard-boiled private eyes.”--New York Times Book Review
Wisecracking PI Kemal Kayankaya cares more about sausage and beer than politics, but when he is hired to defend four eco-terrorists charged with murdering the owner of a chemical plant, he finds himself stuck in the middle of Germany’s culture wars. It doesn’t take long for Kayankaya to realize that the whole situation stinks and that both the Left and the Right have blood on their hands. And is the fiery journalist Carla Reedermann dogging his steps because she smells a story, or is she after something more? A hardboiled noir in the Chandler tradition that also provides a wry critique of contemporary racial and environmental politics, More Beer shows why Jakob Arjouni’s series of Kayankaya novels has become a bestselling international sensation.
“Four members of a radical ecological group blow up a chemical plant pipe and find themselves involved in a strange murder charge: Kemal Kayankaya is hired to find a mysterious man who may hold the key to the incident. Ethnic influences and implications abound in this tense drama.”--Midwest Book Review
