Kismet

Kismet
Jakob Arjouni

“I put a pistol in my pocket and set off in my Opel for Offenbach.” Being an international style, noir has adapted well to the globalization of the criminal underworld (a scene explored by Misha Glenny in his non-fiction tour guide McMafia). After all, there has to be some method for letting Euro- heavies know how to dress, what cars to drive, and just generally how to talk the talk and walk the walk. And so Jakob Arjouni’s Frankfurt detective (and Turkish immigrant) Kemal Kayankaya fits right in, able to drink hard and take a good beating, talk fast and stay on budget. The story needed a few more curves, but fans of the genre will appreciate the quick pace and interesting foreign colour.