Called in to investigate the kidnapping of the daughter of one of Algiers' top power-brokers, Superintendent Llob's hunt takes him through fear-filled streets to find Sabrine, and lots besides...
From the dens of drug-dealers to the palaces of arms-traffickers, he negotiates the parade of pimps and fundamentalists, prophets and fakis, sodomites, sharks and visionaries...there's no doubt that Llob can swing it. But the random car-bombings, daily carnage and the mutilations endemic to Algiers - to say nothing of escalating threats to his own life - have a way of getting under one's skin...Racy and fast-moving, Khadra's cop is a masterpiece of mocking disenchantment, recalling Raymond Chandler's Marlowe.