Devil of Delphi

August 3, 2015
Captivating villains elevate Siger’s seventh mystery featuring Chief Insp. Andreas Kaldis (after 2014’s Sons of Sparta), a by-the-numbers procedural in which Kaldis, head of Greece’s special crimes division, works to stem the flow of counterfeit liquor. As the counterfeit alcohol’s poisonous formula claims its first victims, a mysterious cult leader and businesswoman known only as Teacher hires reclusive assassin Kharon as part of her plan to control Greece’s wine smugglers. Though the pair’s clashing ethical systems constantly threaten to tear them apart, their partnership, built around respect and dangerous necessity, makes them nearly unstoppable. Unfortunately, in comparison to their brutally inventive adversaries, the detectives come across as pedestrian and bumbling. The many investigators under Kaldis’s command are not nearly as well characterized as Kharon and Teacher, and quickly begin to blend together. Readers may find themselves racing through the detectives’ investigation, hoping to land on another section exploring Kharon and Teacher’s dark friendship.

August 15, 2015
When Greek police go after the counterfeit-wine industry, they stir up a hornet's nest of syndicate counteroffensives and unleash a psychopath. Kharon, a young man with a criminal record that was expunged because of his youth, is hitchhiking in Delphi. After the driver who picks him up puts a move on him, Kharon directs them to a secluded place, where he brutally kills the driver. Meanwhile in Athens, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis, head of the Greek Police's Special Crime division (Sons of Sparta, 2014, etc.), is asked by a trio of colleagues to tackle the illegal wine industry, which undermines the reputation of local producers and harms tourism. While he and detectives Kouros and Petro gather information, Kharon's aggression and reputation among local criminals gets him noticed. In short order, he makes his way to the local kingpin, a disarmingly direct and low-key woman known as Teacher. She gives him a shot at being her enforcer. Kharon learns her violent bona fides from Jacobi, a midlevel criminal. Because mutual trust is scarce in her line of work, Teacher finds it challenging to control her volatile new pit bull. The apparently casual murder of the daughter of a renowned Greek politician right in front of her brother puts the police on a different trail, one that leads back to Teacher. Though the reader is always several steps ahead of the police here, Siger's sublimely malevolent villains make the book a page-turner.

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October 1, 2015

A killer named Kharon (for the mythological ferryman who transports the dead across the River Styx) and bomba, or counterfeit wine, complicate the lives of Chief Inspector Kaldis and his team. The seventh book in Siger's Greek procedural series (Sons of Sparta) features a strong sense of place and a devious plot.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2015
Siger brings Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis some very big challenges in his seventh mystery (following Sons of Sparta, 2014) set in troubled contemporary Greece. Political shenanigans, economic crises, and class conflict were as prevalent in ancient times as they are today, so it is no surprise that Kharon, a gifted assassin, living in beautiful Delphi and trying to rebuild his life on the straight and narrow, should fall under the spell of a thoroughly evil underworld boss, a modern Oracle of Delphi. With no choice but to do the oracle's bidding or be exposed for his past killings, Kharon is dispatched to assassinate those who would interfere with the boss' counterfeit liquor trade, which has caught the eye of Kaldis and his Special Crimes Division. There are multiple sources of appeal here: the fast-paced plot, the landscape, and, as always, the appealing camaraderie shared by Kaldis and his crew, as well as the bantering relationship between the inspector and his well-connected wife, Lila. The final plot twist proves well worth the wait, but it won't take readers long to get there as they will be turning pages at a ferocious clip.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)