Parker Bilal. Bloomsbury, $25 (416p) ISBN 978-1-60819-794-1
Bilal (Traveling with Djinns) deftly weaves past and present in this complex and compelling mystery set in 1998 Cairo. When corrupt and devious tycoon Saad Hanafi asks PI Makana to find Adil Romario, Hanafi’s missing star soccer player, the trail...
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Parker Bilal. Bloomsbury, $27 (432p) ISBN 978-1-62040-340-2
In Bilal’s well-crafted third Makana mystery (after 2013’s Dogstar Rising), wealthy Cairo lawyer Magdy Ragab hires Makana to discover who set the fire that killed Karima Ragab, a young woman who may be related to the lawyer, but Makana isn’t sure....
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Parker Bilal. Bloomsbury, $27 (384p) ISBN 978-1-62040-886-5
Set in Cairo in 2004, Bilal’s riveting fourth Makana mystery (after 2014’s The Ghost Runner) plunges the intrepid investigator into the world of art dealers and high-stakes art theft. Fellow exile and artist/automobile restorer Ali Shibaker...
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Parker Bilal. Bloomsbury, $27 (464p) ISBN 978-1-63286-327-0
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...
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Parker Bilal. Bloomsbury, $27 (304p) ISBN 978-1-63286-652-3
Set in 2006, Bilal’s tense sixth mystery featuring the Sudanese refugee turned PI Makana (after 2016’s City of Jackals) demonstrates the author’s ability to immerse the reader in the richness, vibrancy, and dynamism of its various locales, starting...
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Parker Bilal. Severn, $28.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-7278-9028-3
In the arresting first chapter of Bilal’s complicated second Crane and Drake mystery (after 2019’s The Divinities), a child is kicking a nylon bag on a London Underground train when a heavy object “wrapped in dirty cloth and what looked like...
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Parker Bilal. Indigo (IPG, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (376p) ISBN 978-1-9996833-7-5
This impressive series launch from Bilal (the Makana series) introduces Det. Sgt. Cal Drake and forensic psychologist Rayhana “Ray” Crane. Iraqi war veteran Cal returns to London and joins the police, where he swiftly rises in the ranks. He’s...
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Parker Bilal. Severn, $28.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7278-5039-3
In this middling crime thriller from Bilal (the Drake and Crane series), Brodie, a hired killer who works for Donny Apostolis, the head of a Greek organized crime family based in London, follows his boss’s murderous instructions without question....
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