Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley investigates a series of arson attacks on cars across the city, which leads her to a startling and life-threatening discovery involving criminal gangs and a very illicit love story...
‘ Another brilliant adventure in the company of Chastity Riley, the coolest character in crime fiction. Darkly funny and written with a huge heart' Doug Johnstone, Big Issue
‘ Reading Buchholz is like walking on firecrackers ... a truly unique voice in crime fiction' Graeme Macrae Burnet
‘ Caustic, incisive prose. A street-smart, gutsy heroine. A timely and staggeringly stylish thriller' Will Carver
***WINNER of the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger 2022***
***WINNER of the German Crime Book of the Year Award***
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Night after night, cars are set alight across the German city of Hamburg, with no obvious pattern, no explanation and no suspect.
Until, one night, on Mexico Street, a ghetto of high-rise blocks in the north of the city, a Fiat is torched. Only this car isn' t empty. The body of Nouri Saroukhan – prodigal son of the Bremen clan – is soon discovered, and the case becomes a homicide.
Public prosecutor Chastity Riley is handed the investigation, which takes her deep into a criminal underground that snakes beneath the whole of Germany. And as details of Nouri' s background, including an illicit relationship with the mysterious Aliza, emerge, it becomes clear that these are not random attacks, and there are more on the cards...
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Praise for the Chastity Riley series...
'Combines nail-biting tension with off-beat humor ... Elmore Leonard fans will be enthralled' Publishers Weekly
'Buchholz doles out delicious black humor ... interwoven in a manner that ramps up the intrigue and tension' Foreword Reviews
‘ A stylish, whip-smart thriller' Russel McLean
‘ Fierce enough to stab the heart' Spectator
‘ Sharp and unrelenting' CultureFly
‘ Simone Buchholz writes with real authority and a pungent, noir-ish sense of time and space' Financial Times
‘ Deeply moody, atmospheric and evocative' Blue Book Balloon
‘ An unconventional, refreshing new voice' Crime Fiction Lover
‘ Fans of Brookmyre could do worse than checking out Simone Buchholz, a star of the German crime lit scene who has been deftly translated into English by Rachel Ward' Goethe Institute
‘ By turns lyrical and pithy, this adventure set in the melting pot of contemporary Hamburg has a plot and a sensibility that both owe something to mind-altering substances. Lots of fun' Sunday Times
‘ Great sparkling energy, humour and stylistic verve and the story itself is gripping and pacey' Rosie Goldsmith
‘ A must-read, stylish and highly original take on the detective novel, written with great skill and popping with great characters'