Happy birthday, Türke!

Jakob Arjouni

A Turkish worker is stabbed to death in Frankfurt's red-light district - certainly no reason for the police to work overtime. Kemal Kayankaya, however, has a different attitude. A 26-year-old of Turkish birth but German upbringing, he doesn't speak Turkish but looks it, has a German passport and first-hand experience of resentment against foreigners. He is also a private investigator, hired to find the killer and the motive for the crime. Like his literary forefathers Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, he is a loner, but as a Turk, not because he has an option. Yet he is not unarmed; with an irreverent and hilarious sense of humor Kayakankaya goes about his search, all the while drinking too much, encountering obnoxious policemen and easy women. After twists and turns he finally runs into a drug ring built on the exploitation of Turkish immigrants. The influence of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett on Jakob Arjouni is impossible to miss; the plot moves quickly, the action thrills, the characters are unforgettable and the milieu is painted so realistically that it immediately comes to life for the reader.