Kismet

It all began with a favour. Kayankaya and Slibulsky had wanted to help out Romario, the owner of a small Brazilian restaurant, when he is threatened by extortionists. Then suddenly there were two bodies on the floor of Romario's restaurant, their faces caked in white powder. Kayankaya is troubled by these deaths and decides to find out who the men are, until he himself is pursued by a mafia organisation about whom nothing appears to be known.

Gradually it becomes clear to Kayankaya that he is facing the most brutal and dangerous group of gangsters to have run Frankfurt's station quarter. And then a new assignment comes in: he is to find a woman he has seen in a video film, and who he is convinced was looking at him from the screen.

Kismet is a brilliant novel about organised crime, the fallout from the Balkan wars, and the madness of nationalism from one of Europe's finest crime writers.



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 last novel, Brother Kemal, was published by No Exit Press in August 2013.



'Arjouni forges both a gripping caper and a haunting indictment of the madness of nationalism, illuminated by brilliant use of language: magnificent'



'Arjouni's fourth Kayankaya novel and they deserve to be better known in the English-speaking world. One worth waiting for'



'Arjouni's PI hero Kayankaya has to deal with racism as a Turk living in modern Frankfurt'



'true hardboiled detective fiction, realistic, violent and occasionally funny'



'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'