Grey Doll's Criminal Reading Travels: Egypt, Italy and Ireland

I likes to read crime fiction and I likes to travel when I read.
(As opposed to reading when I travel. I don't really go anywhere except in my imagination, see.)

So I thought I'd point you to some of the books I have read recently... and to their reviews over on the Euro Crime site.

I enjoy the books of British Sudanese writer Parker Bilal. "The Burning Gates" is his latest novel featuring Cairo-based Sudanese exile and private eye, Makana. And it does not disappoint. Makana hits the privileged world of art collectors and Cairo society but soon ends up in a stew of murder, stolen art works, war criminals and mercenaries. What I love about Bilal's Makana is his wit, his cautious humanity, his rich and varied pool of friends and acquaintances... and his sheer survivor instinct. Makana is a man who does not wear his heart on his sleeve but it bleeds all the same. Read a full review of Parker Bilal's "The Burning Gates" here.

I have also travelled to Italy for Conor Fitzgerald's "Bitter Remedy". This is the fifth in his series featuring  Commissario Alec Blume of the Rome police. Blume has found himself out of his personal depth and enrols on a natural remedies course which maroons him in the Italian countryside, increasingly ill, but nevertheless drawn into the search for a missing Romanian girl. Alec Blume is a quirky protagonist... who requires some patience to understand... as most of his workmates and his long suffering partner would testify. But there is subtle wit to be found in his neurotic dealings. Read the full review here.

Finally I visit Northern Ireland and the second Celcius Daly novel of Anthony Quinn. "Border Angels" takes us into the territory of sex-trafficking, rural brothels in ruined farmhouses and shipping containers. Daly is on the trail of a trafficked woman after the death of a pimp. The trail takes us, amongst other places, to a ruined half-finished housing development and a developer's vanity-project mansion, giving us a squint at Ireland after the crash. Quinn's settings are some distance from the gritty streets of Belfast but his eery, rural landscapes of mists and thorn hedges are unforgettable. The full review is here.

And I'm staying in Northern Ireland for a while with Stuart Neville's sixth novel, due out in June - "Those We Left Behind". It's a brilliant, chilling story. I'll let you know more later.

Grey Doll & Criminal Reading: Parker Bilal's "The Ghost Runner"

I have become a fan of Parker Bilal's crime fiction series featuring his Sudanese refugee private eye Makana. Set in Mubarak's Egypt before the Arab Spring they feature Makana setting out to solve crimes and hang on to his own skin as he builds a circle of friends and contacts and attempts to remake a life in Egypt after his escape from Sudan and the loss of his family.
The third and latest episode is "The Ghost Runner", in which Makana agrees to take on an "honour-killing" case of a young woman whose family comes from an oasis town in the Western Desert. Naturally he has to go there... and walks into a murder case that the local police chief insists Makana helps him with. Things grow darker and more complicated.
I enjoy these books not only for the plot and suspense but for the dry-witted portraits of Makana and his friends and for the sense of place.
Read a full review over on the Euro Crime Blogspot.

Mrs D Ponders Crime in Cairo: Parker Bilal & "Dogstar Rising"

As I can tell you for a fact... Mrs D does all of her travelling in her armchair... courtesy of books, film, music, ... and the internet.

She do sit down... reach for that glass of red and see where she do go next.

She is very pleased to have read the second crime book by British Sudanese writer, Jamal Mahjoub who writes under the nom-de-crime of Parker Bilal. He sets his books in Cairo with Sudanese refugee private-eye Makana investigating. She do like Makana, an outsider with a dry wit  and a painful past .... she do like his run-down houseboat and in general she do like Bilal's books. She looks forward to more.

Here's the Euro Crime Post that links to the latest batch of reviews including Bilal's "Dogstar Rising"... You might find some more crime fiction you would like to catch ... Mrs D would like to get her hands on "Pierced"  by Thomas Enger  for a start.....

Shifting Sands: Guy Martin

The Old Man and me goes off to Falmouth last Friday - to catch one of the last days of an exhibition of Guy Martin's photos of Egypt and Libya during the Arab Spring conflict. The exhibition was at The Poly there... and sorry it's already closed cos it was only on for a week!

Guy Martin is a young photographer who was seriously injured in the same rocket attack in Libya that killed his two companions, documentary maker and photographer Tim Hetherington, and US photographer Chris Hondros.

The photos are good, the whole thing moving. I's struck by two photographs of Egyptian protestors racing through Cairo. In one - squares of paper briefing the protestors on the chants and slogans drift through the air around them. There are also some beautiful, almost abstract photos of the patterns left by fire... one a burnt out room with scorched filing cabinets, another the pattern of blast on the tarmac surface of a road after a Molotov cocktail has exploded.

The Old Man prefers a more narrative approach and is struck by a photo of three young man standing in front of a building: one peers round the corner, the next stands behind him holding a gun and almost touchingly out of place with his glasses and flip-flop sandals, finally another young man stands nervously behind both, studying them. There is another photo that The Old Man picks out with a young fighter crouching near the floor against the wall inside a building, he is looking up at a window, the light falling through it catches his eyes and lights them up.

Sorry that the exhibition was so brief and couldn't pass on the info earlier, but you can see some of Guy Martin's work at his own website here.

And speaking personally... I long for stuff to be exhibited down here that's national or international. It's all so Cornwall-centric......

I'll get told off for that won't I.