The discovery of a severed head on a London Tube leads private investigators Crane and Drake on a dark journey into the past – and a personal quest for retribution. In this second title in the London-based Crane and Drake mystery series, Cal Drake has left the police force and is now working as a private detective, having teamed up with the motorcycle-riding Dr Rayhana Crane. The chilling discovery of a severed head on the Tube draws Calil Drake back to the case he failed to solve four years ago which left his police career in tatters. Crane and Drake investigate while also searching for Howeida Almanara – a young international student from the Gulf and the missing girlfriend of a Crane family friend. Could her disappearance be linked to Cal's past and the gruesome discovery on the Tube? Crane and Drake are plunged into the dark underworld of London and international crime, and must risk their lives to uncover the truth.

In London, private investigator Dr Rayhana Crane is contacted by a woman who has received an unexpected letter from her estranged son Jason, not seen since he left to become a fighter for Islamic State. When his steps are traced back to the old stomping ground of her partner, Cal Drake, the former policeman goes undercover to infiltrate the sinister network which took Jason abroad. Meanwhile, Crane pursues a woman whose seemingly unconnected disappearance off the English coast is soon found to reveal a deadlier connection. As the two investigators delve deeper, they find themselves mired in a violent world where terror and organised crime intersect.

When it comes to family, loyalty is everything . . . It's not easy being the head of a feared crime dynasty. Donny Apostolis and his family are at war with the powerful Ziyades, determined to stop them muscling in on the Apostolis empire. Fortunately, Donny has Brodie. Brodie is loyal. He's also Donny's hitman. He does what he's told, which is why he's agreed to take Donny's young nephew with him on his next job. But when Brodie finds his target, he gets a call that changes everything - and his mission takes a startling turn. Brodie is suddenly one half of an unlikely couple on the run, dragged into a brutal game of survival alongside Karima, the woman he was sent to kill. But can Karima trust him . . . and can Brodie trust her?

It is 2002 and as tanks roll into the West Bank and the reverberations of 9/11 echo across the globe, tensions are running high on Cairo's streets. Private Investigator Makana, in exile from his native Sudan and increasingly haunted by memories of his wife and daughter, is shaken out of his despondency when a routine surveillance job leads him to the horrific murder of a teenage girl. In a country where honour killings are commonplace and the authorities seem all too eager to turn a blind eye, Makana determines to track down the perpetrator. He finds unexpected assistance in the shape of Azza, a woman who seems to share Makana's hunger for justice.Seeking answers in the dead girl's past he travels to Siwa, an oasis town on the edge of the great Sahara desert, where the law seems disturbingly far away and old grievances simmer just below the surface. As violence follows him through the twisting, sand-blown streets and an old enemy lurks in the shadows, Makana discovers that...

Mourad Hafiz appears to have dropped out of university and disappeared. Engaged by his family to try and find him, Makana comes to believe that the Hafiz boy became involved in some kind of political activity just prior to his disappearance. But before he can discover more, the investigation is sidetracked: a severed head turns up on the riverbank next to his home, and Makana finds himself drawn into ethnic rivalry and gang war among young men from South Sudan. The trail leads from a church in the slums and the benevolent work of the larger-than-life Rev. Preston Corbis and sister Liz to the enigmatic Ihsan Qaddus and the Hesira Institute.The fifth installment of this acclaimed series is set in Egypt in December 2005. While Cairo is torn by the protests by South Sudanese refugees demanding their rights, President Mubarak has just been re-elected by a dubious 88 percent majority in the country's first multi-party elections. In response to what appears to be flagrant...

The sixth thriller in the Makana series called "excellent" by Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Book Review. When an Englishman, Marcus Winslow, appears at Private Investigator Makana's door one April morning, Makana does not realize that he will soon risk losing everything he has built for himself in Cairo. Winslow represents the British Secret Intelligence Services and he has a special mission to offer, one that Makana cannot resist: Ayman Nizari, a dangerous specialist in biochemical nerve agents, is on the run and asking for asylum. The only person who can bring him in is Makana—by Nizari's own request.Nizari has gone underground in Istanbul and Makana, for the first time since arriving in Egypt, must travel abroad, to a city he doesn't know. Can he trust Marcus Winslow? Or is something more sinister in the works? In Istanbul, Makana soon realizes that nothing is what it appears to be. Suddenly, his past is racing to catch up...

Summer, 2001. The mutilated bodies of young boys are turning up in the backstreets of Cairo, and the finger of suspicion is pointing at the city's Coptic community. As Makana, a private investigator who fled his native Sudan a decade ago, watches the embers of religious hatred begin to glow, he has a premonition that history may be about to repeat itself. But for now, Makana has another case to solve, involving a disgruntled travel agent, stolen money, and threatening letters-an assignment that appears to point to nothing more than a family feud. That is, until Makana meets Meera, a woman with a dangerous secret who asks for his help- and stumbles upon an unlikely link to the murdered boys.When the travel agent's office becomes the backdrop to a brutal killing Makana is the sole witness, and he attracts the unwanted attention of not only the state security services and the police but also a disreputable Sudanese businessman-who claims to hold the key to Makana's past. His search...

A lost child. A missing hero. A bitter rivalry. In Cairo the ghosts of the past are stirring...Makana is a former police inspector who fled for his life to Cairo from his native Sudan seven years ago. Down on his luck and haunted by the past, he lives on a rickety Nile houseboat. When the notorious and powerful Saad Hanafi hires him to track down a missing person Makana is in no position to refuse him. Hanafi, whose past is as shady as his fortune is glittering, is the owner of Cairo's star-studded football team. His most valuable player has just vanished and Adil Romario's disappearance threatens to bring down not only Hanafi's private empire, but the entire country. But why should the city's most powerful man hire its lowliest private detective? Thrust into a dangerous and glittering world, Makana's investigation leads him into the treacherous underbelly of his adopted country- where he encounters Muslim extremists, Russian gangsters and a desperate mother hunting for her missing daughter. It becomes a trail that stirs up painful memories, leading him back into the sights of an old and dangerous enemy...

In Cairo, private investigator Makana is called into the office of his new client, a powerful art dealer known as Kasabian. Kasabian wants him to track down a famous painting that went missing from Baghdad during the US invasion. All the dealer can tell Makana is that the piece was smuggled into Egypt by an Iraqi war criminal who doesn't want to be found.The world of art is a far cry from the shady streets and alleyways of the Cairo that Makana knows, but he soon finds out that this side of the city has its own dark underbelly. As he sets out to find the lost work of art—and those involved in the case begin to die in horrific ways—Makana finds himself entangled in a mystery that many have attempted to keep hidden.The trail will lead him back into the dark days of the war and threaten to send the new life he has built for himself up in flames.