City of Jackals (Makana Series #5)

by Parker Bilal

Overview

Mourad Hafiz appears to have dropped out of university and disappeared. Engaged by his family to try and find him, Makana comes to believe that the Hafiz boy became involved in some kind of political activity just prior to his disappearance. But before he can discover more, the investigation is sidetracked: a severed head turns up on the riverbank next to his home, and Makana finds himself drawn into ethnic rivalry and gang war among young men from South Sudan. The trail leads from a church in the slums and the benevolent work of the larger-than-life Rev. Preston Corbis and sister Liz to the enigmatic Ihsan Qaddus and the Hesira Institute.

The fifth installment of this acclaimed series is set in Egypt in December 2005. While Cairo is torn by the protests by South Sudanese refugees demanding their rights, President Mubarak has just been re-elected by a dubious 88 percent majority in the country's first multi-party elections. In response to what appears to be flagrant election-rigging, there are early stirrings of organized political opposition to the regime. Change is afoot and Makana is in danger of being swept away in the seismic shifts of his adopted nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632863287
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Series:	Makana Series , #5
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	839,053
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub. Born in London and brought up in Khartoum, Sudan, Mahjoub has lived in Britain, Denmark, and currently Spain. He is an award-winning literary novelist under his own name, and this is the fifth installment of his acclaimed Makana Mystery series, following The Golden Scales, Dogstar Rising, The Ghost Runner, and The Burning Gates.
Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist. Dark Water is the sixth novel in the Makana Investigations series, the third of which, The Ghost Runner, was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Born in London, Mahjoub has lived at various times in the UK, Sudan, Cairo, Barcelona and Denmark. He currently lives in Amsterdam.

jamalmahjoub.com

Editorial Reviews

04/25/2016
Set in 2005, Bilal’s enjoyable fifth Makana mystery (after 2015’s The Ghost Runner) finds the Cairo-based independent investigator searching for a missing university student, Mourad Hafiz. Makana’s efforts lead him first to a beheaded corpse and then to a person killed in a van involved in a tanker crash. The two deaths were of South Sudanese refugees, so they may be connected, but it’s not clear whether or how Mourad was involved. Makana wants to question Estrella, Mourad’s South Sudanese coworker in a fast-food joint, but she, too, has disappeared. Omar Shaddad, the owner of a string of pharmacies who employed the van driver, provides some leads, and Makana also discovers that Mourad may have been involved with a radical group. The suspense builds as various distractions conspire to slow Makana’s search. Bilal may not raise shivers—save for a sequence involving rats at a dilapidated palace—but he provides plenty of atmosphere. Agent: Euan Thorneycroft, A.M. Heath (U.K.). (June)

Publishers Weekly

"This fifth installment in the Makana mystery series should send you back to the first four . . . Entertaining and exciting but also revealing, the series spins yarns while exposing the reality that Egypt is not all tombs and Pharaohs." - Publishers Weekly, "9 Essential Books by Arab Writers"

"This excellent series . . . captures the climate of fear and rage that has come to define life in a perpetual war zone." - Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review on THE GHOST RUNNER

"[Makana has become] one of crime fiction’s most interesting and sympathetic detectives . . . [Bilal] gets better and better." - The Times on THE BURNING GATES

"Makana is a compelling, even an archetypal, hero . . . [A] must-read series." - starred review, Booklist on THE BURNING GATES

"Sharp, witty, politically astute thrillers . . . Makana's place as an exile on the margins of society . . . makes him the perfect 21st-century detective, capable of uncovering the many guises of power." - Al Jazeera America on THE GHOST RUNNER

From the Publisher

06/01/2016
It is Egypt in December 2005, and the uprising known as the Arab Spring is beginning to stir. Makana has been hired to find Mourad Hafiz, who has disappeared from his college. As a former police chief in Sudan, Makana is dragged into the ethnic warfare of the refugees from South Sudan. A man of honor living in a city of upheaval and corruption, he tries to protect everyone he can. Following The Burning Gates, this fifth entry in the international thriller series is excellent.

Library Journal

2016-03-14
One missing student from South Sudan is a puzzle; a second South Sudanese student found decapitated points to something altogether more disturbing. December 2005. The Hafiz family hires veteran Egyptian private investigator Makana to investigate the sudden disappearance of their son Mourad, a university student. Mourad has chosen to go into engineering rather than taking over the family's once-renowned restaurant, The Verdi Gardens, now past its prime. Mrs. Hafiz admits to Makana that they see Mourad rarely, and none of the family has any idea where he could be. The unconventional Makana, who lives on a boat, has become a friend and mentor to Aziza, the teenage daughter of his landlady. As he and Aziza walk by the river, a fisherman comes ashore with a severed head he's found. This discovery provides Makana the opportunity to question his friend Okasha, a police detective, about his own new case and hear Okasha's concern for the loneliness of Makana, who's still haunted by his wife's death more than a decade ago. With no real leads, the investigation proceeds slowly, though Makana learns from Mourad's roommate, Abdelhadi, that he kept late hours and was disdainful of religions. Makana finds himself drawn to the victim dredged from the river. He visits the coroner, Doctor Siham, who has concluded that the victim, who was tortured, was of Mundari ethnicity, just like Mourad—and indeed like Makana. Could the mysteries be related? This fifth case for Makana (The Burning Gates, 2015, etc.) again deftly wraps a whodunit around an eloquent, character-driven look at recent history.

Kirkus Reviews