Whitefly
A Novel
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
When a fourth corpse in three days washes up in Tangier with a bullet in the chest, Detective Laafrit knows this isn’t just another illegal immigrant who didn’t make it to the Spanish coast.
The traffickers. The drug dealers. The smugglers. They know what it takes to get a gun into Morocco, and so does Laafrit. As his team hunts for the gun, Laafrit follows a hunch and reveals an international conspiracy to unlock the case.
Whitefly is a fast-paced crime thriller from the Arab west.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Arabic crime fiction pioneer Hamdouchi's native Morocco serves as the setting for this hard-boiled noir, which demonstrates that the genre's themes know no borders. While most of the Tangier police force mobilizes to deal with mass protests by the unemployed, Det. Khalid Ibrahim, who's known by the nickname Laafrit ("crafty"), is busy writing a report on a premeditated poisoning case that claimed three victims. After he finishes his report, Laafrit manages to defuse one of the protests by talking to a group of unemployed university graduates. Then Laafrit gets word that the fourth drowning victim in three days has just washed up on shore. The other three corpses were apparently dumped at sea by callous human traffickers, but the latest body was shot four times, execution style. Laafrit's path to the truth is appropriately convoluted, and he comes across as a believable lead a gifted investigator struggling with everyday problems who could sustain a series.