Adam Shatz

From the London Review dated 7 October 2004

One Big Murder Mystery

“Khadra brings to the policier an unrivalled flair for capturing the coarse argot of the Algerian street, and an intimate knowledge of Algiers, from its opulent villas to the wretched slums where Islamic radicals rallied the poor, or the nightclubs popular among ‘high officials with a fondness for virgin boys – which is why one notices a surreptitious odour of Vaseline in the air.’ Inspector Llob, Khadra’s deadpan narrator, is a faithful husband, good Muslim and fierce patriot . . . Like his creator, he writes detective novels in his spare time, under the name of Yasmina Khadra . . . As a cop and a writer, he is doubly a target for the Islamists, who have turned Algiers into ‘a barbecue suspended between God’s hell and the purgatory of men.’” [ read more . . . ]