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BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Jakob Arjouni is the author of the celebrated Kayankaya novels featuring a Turkish detective in Frankfurt. Titles include Happy Birthday Turk, More Beer, One Man One Murder and Kismet. Magic Hoffmann, a standalone novel was shortlisted for the IMPAC Award. His latest novel, Holy Eddy, has just been published in Germany.

He divides his time between Germany and France.
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ABOUT THE BOOK

Provoked by the events of 9/11 and the US reaction, Jakob Arjouni has written a clever and satiric novel focusing on a state intelligence officer and the workings of mass hysteria.

2064 - Securely fenced off from the rest of the world, life in Euroasia, except for a handful of suicide bombings and border disputes, is constantly improving. On the other side of the fence, countries are being exploited and wracked by regression, dictatorship, and religious fanaticism. People live in poverty and misery.

Max Schwartzwald is the owner of Chez Max, a smart Parisian restaurant, but he is also an Ashcroft agent, a member of a secret government organisation whose mission is to promptly identify and weed out anything that may threaten the political status quo.

Schwartzwald's biggest problem is his Ashcroft partner, Chen Wu, a self-righteous loudmouth, who leaves no taboo unbroken, attacks every human weakness and takes liberties at will - all because of the spectacular successes he has achieved within the organisation.

But is Chen a double agent who is bringing illegal immigrants into the Euroasian world and is this the opportunity for Max to get rid of his partner once and for all?

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'Remarkable... a timely oddity'
- Literary Review [read the full review]

'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

'Chez Max imagines a future that is dystopian and noir and altogether plausible'
- Paul Kane, The Compulsive Reader [read the full review]

'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

'A futuristic urban thriller in the style of Chandler'
- The Bookseller [read the full review]

'excellent'
- S.W., crimesquad.com [read the full review]