Around the World in 18 Sleuths
Traveling in my armchair through detective fiction, songs, movies, food, and crafts
“Death and the Penguin” revolves around an aspiring writer, specializing in short stories, who seems to hit it big as a sought-after writer of obituaries. As he navigates the bleak reality of post-Soviet Kyiv, he is accompanied by his pet penguin, Misha, who is depressed and has a heart condition. Organized crime, friendship, corruption, death,…
Parker Bilal’s “The Golden Scales” (2012) features Makana, a former Sudanese police inspector, who had to flee to Cairo. Here, he takes a case from the notoriously corrupt mogul Saad Hanafi, owner of a Cairo soccer team, whose star player, Adil Romario, has gone missing. Soon, Makana is caught up in a mystery that takes…
“The Kiss Murder” follows a nameless transvestite nightclub owner turned detective through Istanbul, who tries to solve the murder of one of the clubs drag queens, a crime linked to a blackmail scheme involving letters and photos received from a powerful and conservative businessman. I couldn’t think of a more intriguing premise! This is the…
Have you ever been to a World Fair (World Expo)? I’ve been to one (I think I was ten?), but I don’t really remember much – except for the long car ride with my parents, and feeling overwhelmed 🙈🙉🙊 In Francisco José Viegas’s “Um Crime na Exposição” (1998) three corpses are discovered on the Expo…
It’s a hot chocolate kind of a day, and how nice that goes with my next #18Sleuths trip to Switzerland! “Wachtmeister Studer” deals with the death of a traveling salesman that appears to be an open and shut case. Sergeant Studer is confronted with an obvious suspect and a confession to the murder. But nothing…