- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Melville International Crime (Oct 5 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1935554239
- ISBN-13: 978-1935554233
- Product Dimensions: 13.9 x 1.7 x 20.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #297,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
“Kemal Kayankaya is the ultimate outsider among hard-boiled private eyes.”
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
"Re-imagines the dull capital of the German financial industry as an urban hell where minority groups and crime bosses prey on one another with ruthless abandon."
—The Daily Beast
"In the emphasis on action and quick-jab dialogue, readers will notice an echo of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, but Arjouni's stories also brim with the absurd humor that made "The Sopranos" so entertaining."
—Vikas Turakhia, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A gripping caper and a haunting indictment of the madness of nationalism, illuminated by brilliant use of language: magnificent.” —The Guardian (England)
“This lively, gripping book sets a high standard for the crime novel as the best of modern literature.” —The Independent (England)
“If you like your investigators tough and sassy, Kayankaya is your guide.”
—Sunday Times of London
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
"Re-imagines the dull capital of the German financial industry as an urban hell where minority groups and crime bosses prey on one another with ruthless abandon."
—The Daily Beast
"In the emphasis on action and quick-jab dialogue, readers will notice an echo of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, but Arjouni's stories also brim with the absurd humor that made "The Sopranos" so entertaining."
—Vikas Turakhia, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A gripping caper and a haunting indictment of the madness of nationalism, illuminated by brilliant use of language: magnificent.” —The Guardian (England)
“This lively, gripping book sets a high standard for the crime novel as the best of modern literature.” —The Independent (England)
“If you like your investigators tough and sassy, Kayankaya is your guide.”
—Sunday Times of London
Product Description
Introducing Kemal Kayankaya, a wise-cracking private detective in Frankfurt – aka, "the ugliest town in Germany."
As a Turkish immigrant raised by Germans, he's regularly subjected to racism in the gritty, working-class city, and getting work isn't easy. So when his friend Romario asks Kayankaya to protect him against thugs demanding protection money from his restaurant business, the down-and-out Kayankaya takes the job.
Except these are no ordinary thugs. They turn out to be battle-hardened Croatian nationalists looking to take over the rackets in Frankfurt, and they do not take kindly to Kayankaya's interference with their plans. But try as he might, Kayankaya just can't seem to stay out of their way …
What ensues is a brilliant novel about organized crime, immigration, the fallout from the Balkan wars, and the madness of nationalism from one of Europe's finest crime writers.
As a Turkish immigrant raised by Germans, he's regularly subjected to racism in the gritty, working-class city, and getting work isn't easy. So when his friend Romario asks Kayankaya to protect him against thugs demanding protection money from his restaurant business, the down-and-out Kayankaya takes the job.
Except these are no ordinary thugs. They turn out to be battle-hardened Croatian nationalists looking to take over the rackets in Frankfurt, and they do not take kindly to Kayankaya's interference with their plans. But try as he might, Kayankaya just can't seem to stay out of their way …
What ensues is a brilliant novel about organized crime, immigration, the fallout from the Balkan wars, and the madness of nationalism from one of Europe's finest crime writers.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.3 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard Boiled Racism in Frankfurt, Nov 6 2010
By Steven Forth - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Kismet: A Kayankaya Thriller (4) (Paperback)
Kismet is part of a series featuring a German detective of Turkish extraction Kemal Kayankaya. The books are set in Frankfurt, but not the glittery efficient Frankfurt most visitors know from trade shows and business meetings. This story turns around the station area, the red light district where gangs struggle for control of the drugs, prostitution, gaming and protection rackets. The book surfaces the engrained racism of Germany towards its Turkish population (all of the industrial economies have deep racist thinking em bedded in their psyche, including Canada where I live, so this is not a particular slap on Germany, it is a fact that festers if ignored). Kismet, in which a group of Croatian nationalists is trying to wrest the area from its current Albanian, Turkish and German bosses. Kayankaya gets caught up in this almost by accident, killing two of the Albanians while trying to help a Brazilian friend. Struggling with a guilty conscious, and wanting to keep the Brazilian alive, he sets out to find out what is really behind the killings and who the people he killed are. In the best of Noir style, he becomes obsessed with the case, and won't let go no matter how often he is threatened or beaten up. The book gives a real feeling for the gritty side of Frankfurt and the ethnic tensions that color people's relationships. Kayankaya is the right mix of tough, smart, determined and vulnerable. He can suck up punishment and will kill if he has to but is not a bloodless automaton. All in all a fascinating look into Germany and an intriguing character. I will follow this series and look for the next books as they come out.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable for fans of the genre looking for something a little different., Mar 29 2011
By Sarvi Sheybany "Film Student" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Kismet: A Kayankaya Thriller (4) (Paperback)
If you new to the genre and looking for something great to sell it to you as literature, this isn't the title that will do it (check out Jim Thompson, Bill James, or others). If you read a lot in this genre and are looking for something new to add some variety, the characters and settings of this book are a nice change of pace. Good, entertaining summer reading, and a nice view into something a little different from the usual LA/Gotham hardboiled setting, or historical settings, but not something that made me want to run out and buy everything this author's ever written.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard-Boiled Europe, Mar 5 2011
By K. Nishikawa - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Kismet: A Kayankaya Thriller (4) (Paperback)
Pre-release customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program
Arjouni's final novel in the Kayankaya series is a treat for crime fiction lovers: a breezy, first-person narrative situated firmly in the hard-boiled tradition. Comparisons to Chandler and McBain are rife, but the novelist Arjouni reminds me of the most is that pillar of the African American crime tradition, Chester Himes. Like Himes, Arjouni is his country's keenest observer of the intersections of race, masculinity, and the urban underworld. And like much of Himes's fiction, Kismet includes memorable scenes of surreal, explosive violence.Originally published in German ten years ago, in 2001, some of Kismet's narrative details (I won't mention which, for fear of spoiling the "mystery") are dated, a product of specifically turn-of-the-millennium transformations to European society. Still, the novel affords great insight into Kayankaya's experiences as a Turkish-German man who, by all accounts, is as solidly working-class "Frankfurt" (the city in which he resides) as can be. For fans of the hard-boiled tradition, you can't go wrong with this finale to Kayankaya's adventures. The American publication of Kismet by Melville House leaves much to look forward to for the rest of the series' availability Stateside.
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