Brother Kemal by Jakob Arjuni

When a wealthy woman hires Kemal Kayankaya to find her missing daughter, the private detective quickly gets the girl away from the clutches of a notorious pimp. However, to get her home safely means walking away from a bit of a mess. Meanwhile, he accepts a job as a bodyguard for a Tunisian author during the Frankfurt Book Fair. Aware that "the risk of dying in an attack involving explosives is a hundred times less than the risk of choking on a mini-mozzarella," Kemal doesn't take the publisher's talk of threats too seriously. He assumes the bodyguard is being provided "for promotional purposes."

Raised in Gemany, the orphaned Kemal has learned no Turkish. Yet in multicultural Frankfurt, even dealing with his French client and her Dutch husband, he can't escape being stereotyped.

This is a book where people wear masks and nothing is what it seems. Watching the transparently phony act of his client Valerie, Kemal concludes that she herself "no longer knew what she did unintentionally and what was a calculation or a trick."

All around him, values are upended. When Octavian, his policeman friend, confides that he knows "a great many people who prefer to save their own skin over the punishment of a criminal," Kemal tells him he's '"been in the Vice Squad too long," adding, "It's bad for your morals."' In fact, the cop is aware of an informer in his own ranks passing information to a known criminal, but puts off disturbing "the pyramid of police power" as his "promotion is due in a few weeks."

Nothing is as it seems. Kemal suspects a devout sheikh of resorting to kidnapping and threats to protect his nephew, a pimp who sells heroin. Receiving a strange phone call from this man, the "Turk" does not respond as expected to the sheik's "heavy hints and impenetrable remarks," but tells him to quit beating about the bush and get to the point. Convinced that Kemal Kayankaya is a Muslim name, the sheik later gives him a Koran.

Only with Kemal's wife Deborah can the reader relax into knowing that what we see is what we get. Her character is the classic uncomplicated ex-tart with a heart of gold.

In contrast to its red cover, the genre of the novel tends toward the noir, leavened by touches of sharp humour. This topsy turvy detective story by the talented Jakob Arjouni is a wild ride, full of ironic twists expressed in deliciously skillful language. This talented writer hit the ground running, winning a prize for his first novel, published at age 18. He died aged 49 in 2013, the year this final Kayankaya novel was published.