Happy Birthday, Turk

The first Kayankaya Mystery

When a Turkish labourer is stabbed to death in Frankfurt's red light district, the local police see no need to work overtime. But when the labourer's wife comes to him for help, detective Kemal Kayankaya, a Turkish immigrant himself, smells a rat. The dead man wasn't the kind of guy who spent time with prostitutes. What gives? The deeper he digs, the more Kayankaya finds that the vitim was a good guy, a poor immigrant just trying to look out for his family. So who wanted him dead, and why?

On the way to find out, Kayankaya has run-ins with prostitutes, drug addicts, anonymous thugs. And then there's the police cover-up he stumbles upon…

'The whole series should be on any crime connoisseur's bookshelf' – Telegraph

'Jakob Arjouni writes the best urban thrillers since Raymond Chandler' – Tempo

'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