No Exit Press - Happy Birthday, Turk by Jakob Arjouni

ABOUT THE BOOK

A Kemal Kayankaya Mystery

A Turkish worker - Ahmed Hamul - is stabbed to death in Frankfurt's red-light district - certainly no reason for the local police to work overtime. Kemal Kayankaya, however has a different attitude. He is 26, born in Turkey, raised in Germany and now working as a Private Investigator. He has a German passport but has first hand experience of resentment against foreigners and now Hamul's wife, Ilter, has hired Kayankaya to find out who murdered her husband.

In the 3 days it takes him to wrap up the case, he has time to identify Ilter's sister as a heroin addict, track down Ahmed's girlfriend [a prostitute], link his father-in-law's fatal accident three years earlier to an ingenious police cover-up, and still survive beatings, gas attacks and a close encounter with a Fiat.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"...A worthy grandson of Marlowe and Spade...." - Stern

"...Jakob Arjouni writes the best urban thrillers since Raymond Chandler..." - Tempo

"...There is hardly another German-speaking writer who is as sure of his milieu as Arjouni is. He draws incredibly vivid pictures of people and their fates in just a few words. He is a master of the sketch – and the caricature – who operates with the most economic of means...." - Die Welt, Berlin

"...Arjouni is a master of authentic background descriptions and an original story teller..." - Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung

"...Arjouni tells real-life stories, and they virtually never have a happy ending. He tells them so well, with such flexible dialogue and cleverly maintained tension, that it is impossible to put his books down..." - El País, Madrid

"...His virtuosity, humour and feeling for tension are a ray of hope in literature on the other side of the Rhine..." - Actuel, Paris

"...A genuine storyteller who beguiles his readers without the need of tricks..." - L'Unità, Milan