More Beer by Jakob Arjouni

 

First published in Germany in 1987; published in US by Melville House on June 7, 2011

There is more story in this short (176 page) novel than you'll find in most 400 page thrillers. That's because Jakob Arjouni doesn't waste words. Using language that is both efficient and precise, Arjouni manages to set evocative scenes, create convincing characters, and tell a story that is lively, meaningful, and entertaining.

The Ecological Front put an end to the pollution emitted from a chemical company's waste pipe by blowing it up. The four people involved deny responsibility for the contemporaneous shooting death of the company's owner, Friedrich Böllig. Böllig's death is fortunate news for the rival chemical companies that want to demonize the Greens but it also seems to benefit Böllig's young wife. The lawyer defending the four activists believes there was a fifth participant in the sabotage who might have been involved in the shooting but his clients won't betray their colleague. The lawyer hires private investigator Kemal Kayankaya to find the missing culprit. Spanning only three days, Kayankaya's investigation is impeded by violent hoodlums, corrupt (and equally violent) police officers, an unethical doctor, a reporter, and Böllig's family, among others. As Kayankaya continues to dig (in between incidents of getting his head bashed in), he discovers that the circumstances surrounding Böllig's death are ... complicated.

The story is entertaining but it is the main character that makes More Beer worth reading. Kayankaya is a Turk by birth and, despite having lived his entire life in Germany, he is regarded as an undesirable outsider. His fellow Germans expect him to be uncouth, sexist, and odoriferous. Instead, he's cantankerous, tenacious, and a bit philosophical. As the German-Turk version of the hard-drinking noir detective, Kayankaya is at once familiar and strange.

More Beer was first published in Germany in 1987. It is the second of four Kayankaya novels. Kayankaya meets a character in More Beer who shows up again in the next novel -- One Man, One Murder -- but Arjouni doesn't engage in the sort of novel-to-novel character development that makes it necessary to read the series in order. I don't think More Beer is quite as good as One Man, One Murder, but it's nonetheless a quick, engaging read. Readers who enjoy international mysteries and those who want to sample a different shade of noir should give Arjouni's Kayankaya novels a try.

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