Whitefly

Arabic crime fiction pioneer Hamdouchi's native Morocco serves as the setting for this hard-boiled noir, which demonstrates that the genre's themes know no borders. While most of the Tangier police force mobilizes to deal with mass protests by the unemployed, Det. Khalid Ibrahim, who's known by the nickname Laafrit ("crafty"), is busy writing a report on a premeditated poisoning case that claimed three victims. After he finishes his report, Laafrit manages to defuse one of the protests by talking to a group of unemployed university graduates. Then Laafrit gets word that the fourth drowning victim in three days has just washed up on shore. The other three corpses were apparently dumped at sea by callous human traffickers, but the latest body was shot four times, execution style. Laafrit's path to the truth is appropriately convoluted, and he comes across as a believable lead%E2%80%94a gifted investigator struggling with everyday problems%E2%80%94who could sustain a series. (Mar.)