The ghost runner - Parker Bilal

It is 2002 and as tanks roll into the West Bank and the reverberations of 9/11 echo across the globe, tensions are running high on Cairo's streets. Private Investigator Makana, in exile from his native Sudan and increasingly haunted by memories of the wife and daughter he lost, is shaken out of his grief when a routine surveillance job leads him to the horrific murder of a teenage girl.Seeking answers, he travels to Siwa, an oasis town on the edge of the great Sahara desert, where the law seems disturbingly far away. As violence follows him through the twisting, sand-blown streets and an old enemy lurks in the shadows, Makana discovers that the truth can be as deadly and as changeable as the desert beneath his feet

Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist. Dark Water is the sixth novel in the Makana Investigations series, the third of which, The Ghost Runner, was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Born in London, Mahjoub has lived at various times in the UK, Sudan, Cairo, Barcelona and Denmark. He currently lives in Amsterdam.jamalmahjoub.com

The third in this fine series ... Not for the first time, a literary novelist uses the crime genre to terrific effect, exposing official complicity in historic crimes against women
Sunday Times

Murder mystery that expertly probes the dark side of Cairo . This atmospheric crime fiction probes deep issues
Independent

Cairo detective Makana investigates an "honour" crime
Sunday Times, Summer Reading

A novel that is both celebration and indictment of modern Egypt
Daily Telegraph Summer Reading