The Golden Scales: A Makana Investigation

By Parker Bilal

Former police inspector Makana, in exile from his native Sudan, lives on a rickety Nile houseboat in Cairo, scratching out a living as a private investigator. When he receives a call from the notorious and powerful Saad Hanafi, he is thrust into a dangerous and glittering world. Hanafi is the owner of a star-studded football team and their most valuable player has vanished. His disappearance threatens to bring down not only the businessman's private empire but also the entire country.

Makana encounters Muslim extremists, Russian gangsters and a desperate mother hunting for her missing daughter, as his search stirs up painful memories, leading him back into the sights of an old and dangerous enemy...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Feb 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781408824900

Parker Bilal

Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist. Dark Water is the sixth novel in the Makana Investigations series, the third of which, The Ghost Runner, was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Born in London, Mahjoub has lived at various times in the UK, Sudan, Cairo, Barcelona and Denmark. He currently lives in Amsterdam. jamalmahjoub.com

Reviews for The Golden Scales

[quibee · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a mystery set in Cairo back in the 1980s. Macana is an outsider, a former police inspector from Sudan who didn't turn a blind eye when he should have and who so was forced to leave his country and lost everyone dear to him. He barely makes a living investigating cases the local police don't get involved with. The sense of place is extraordinary. Bilal makes Cairo seem real--rotting away before your eyes. Corruption is everywhere. Macana's investigation on behalf of a "former" criminal overlord takes him through many levels and layers of society.
The thing I found hard to believe was Macana's incredible naivety that came through in the flashbacks--it didn't seem realistic that he would continually ignore all the danger signs that should have been telling him to leave the country long before he did.
Interesting mystery story. Fabulous sense of place. Good character. 3.5 stars

[julia.flyte · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in an unsettled Cairo, shortly after the 1997 terrorist attacks in Luxor, this is the story of a private detective hired to find a missing football star by the team's millionaire owner. Makana is a terrific character: brave, damaged and cynical, a former policeman who fled Sudan when civil unrest made it too dangerous. The story is interwoven with a cold case about an English woman trying to find her daughter who was abducted in Cairo 16 years earlier. When the woman is murdered, Makana takes an interest in the case and investigates that along with the missing footballer.This is an absorbing mystery, perhaps a little overcomplicated, perhaps too reliant on coincidence, but redeemed by the strong sense of place and the intriguing characters. It moves at a good pace and holds the reader's interest. It's a strong crime novel with a very interesting setting.

[ffortsa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very noir mystery that takes place in Cairo, Egypt, with all the requisite components of noir: an emotionally wounded detective, a society consumed with greed and poverty, a missing celebrity who doesn't know who he really is, a lost girl, a clash of cultures, as well as the religious upheaval we hear so much about in the Muslim world. I hope Bilal writes a dozen more of them.

[cameling_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A child goes missing during her mother's drug induced blackout, and her mother spends years coming back to Cairo trying to find her. Adil Romario, national soccer hero in Egypt is missing and Makana, an ex-police inspector from Sudan who had lost his family and forced to seek refuge in Cairo, is engaged by an elderly Egyptian tycoon to find him.What are his investigations bringing to the surface? Whose feathers are being ruffled, who has the most to lose and who has the most to gain? Everyone has secrets they're trying to protect. Before long, Makana finds himself being followed as he tries to trace the last whereabouts of Adil, the people he knew and the places he had been to. He catches the attention of an ambitious journalist who seems to be shadowing him, and the local police honcho who may be using Makana to fuel his own career advancement. In the meantime, the mother of the long missing child is found tortured and murdered just days after Makana has met her by chance at a cafe he frequents. Something about her murder disturbs him, and he finds himself trying to find answers, and in doing so, puts himself in the way of violent danger from multiple fronts.