Rating: 7/10 · Translated from German
- Plot: A Turkish-German private investigator is hired by a widow to find who killed her husband in Frankfurt’s station district.
- Clues: Found in bars, brothels and police stations, with drugs and corruption central.
- Reveal: Hard-boiled and cynical.
Kemal Kayankaya was born to Turkish parents and adopted by a German family. He has a German passport and a Turkish face, and in Frankfurt that means he is treated as a foreigner everywhere. A Turkish widow hires him to find out who stabbed her husband. The police have little interest.
Jakob Arjouni wrote the book when he was barely twenty, and it has the energy of a debut. Kayankaya is a classic hard-boiled detective, sarcastic, tough and alone, but his situation adds a sharp social dimension. Racism is everywhere, from police officers to landlords.
The Frankfurt setting is vivid, especially the red-light district around the railway station. The investigation leads to heroin, corrupt police and family secrets.
The weakness is that the plot follows familiar hard-boiled patterns, and some characters are stereotypes. The humour can be heavy-handed.
The 7 reflects a lively, provocative novel that introduced one of German crime fiction’s most distinctive detectives. Doris Dörrie filmed it in 1992.
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