The Burning Gates

December 22, 2014
Set in Cairo in 2004, Bilal’s riveting fourth Makana mystery (after 2014’s The Ghost Runner) plunges the intrepid investigator into the world of art dealers and high-stakes art theft. Fellow exile and artist/automobile restorer Ali Shibaker introduces Makana to Aram Kasabian, a rich and well-connected art dealer who, it appears, is on the lookout for certain modern masterworks that disappeared during the Nazi regime—but have somehow resurfaced in connection with the notorious Col. Khadim al-Samari of the Iraqi armed forces. Kasabian employs Makana to locate al-Samari, a fugitive on America’s most-wanted list, who may be secretly in Egypt thanks to his cronies in the army. Makana’s quest takes him to shabby bars, discreet nightclubs, and even to mosques. More than one gruesome death helps propel the twisty plot to a Pyrrhic conclusion. Agent: Euan Thorneycroft, A. M. Heath (U.K.).

December 15, 2014
A seasoned Cairo detective finds himself out of his element and immersed in personal peril in the hunt for a priceless painting. September 2004. The street protests that rocked Cairo upon the invasion of Iraq have died away after 18 months. Somber private investigator Makana visits wealthy new client Aram Kasabian, who makes an ostentatious show of his opulent home yet requests discretion from the sleuth. Makana's friend, the artist Ali Shibaker, has put him in touch with the extravagant patron of the arts, who wants Makana to track down an Iraqi colonel named Khadim al-Samari, who is the key to a stolen painting Kasabian wants to recover. Many colorful types linger at the Kasabian estate, most prominently brash Lebanese dealer Dalia Habashi, who's not too shy to talk trash about Kasabian. Makana has earned his noir stripes legitimately; his wife and daughter vanished several years ago, and there's little hope that he'll find them again. His investigation becomes an unsettling journey into the political crosscurrents of Saddam Hussein's regime. And he learns too late that the secretive Samari is a dangerous man. The case takes yet another turn when Kasabian is killed in his home, not long after a disturbance there. A large circle of suspects, many with checkered reputations, add to Makana's challenge. Makana's fourth case (The Ghost Runner, 2014, etc.) again uses a mystery MacGuffin to comment eloquently on recent history and daily life in a region unfamiliar to most Western readers.

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Starred review from November 1, 2014
In the increasingly violent backdrop of 2004 Cairo, idealistic private investigator Makana (The Ghost Runner, 2013) navigates a web of tenuous loyalties and ponders the brutal, opportunistic legacy of political unrest. Makana's new client, art dealer Aram Kasabian, represents an American buyer seeking paintings stolen by a fugitive Iraqi during the invasion of Kuwait. Kasabian wants Makana to find the general, Samari, so that he can broker a black-market deal. When Kasabian's body is found bearing the marks of Samari's trademark torture technique, Makana suspects that that solution is too neat, and he begins looking into Kasabian's slick American client. Black-market art and the general's $3 million bounty provide a multitude of motives, and Makana doggedly hunts for Kasabian's killer while ducking the crossfire between Cairo's elite, gangsters, mercenaries, and a vengeful American homicide detective. Makana is a compelling, even an archetypal, herohaunted by the family he lost in Sudan and struggling to find the lesser of evils in his most brutal and thrilling case yet. A winning addition to this must-read series for fans of international crime fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)