[sufue]

The first three titles in Parker Bilal's Makana mystery series are Nook Daily Finds today at $1.99. I've looked at Kindle US and only the first one is discounted; I reported the other two prices, and hope they will drop before the end of the day. I've read and enjoyed the first two in this series, and am glad to have the chance to get the third at a reasonable price. In the interests of disclosure, I should note that I am a big Egyptophile, so am predisposed to like books set in Egypt

Nook link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/nook...-find/_/N-1hda

Amazon link for Parker Bilal books for price-checking purposes: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/?sea...price-asc-rank

The titles are:

The Golden Scales, #1

Spoiler:

A lost child. A missing hero. A bitter rivalry.
In Cairo the ghosts of the past are stirring...

The ancient city of Cairo is a whirling mix of the old and the new, where fates collide and the super rich rub shoulders with the desperate and the dispossessed. It is a place where ambition and corruption go hand in hand, and where people can disappear in the blink of an eye.

Makana is a former police inspector who fled for his life 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...

Dogstar Rising, #2

Spoiler:

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 for answers takes him from the labyrinth of Cairo to the city of Luxor and an abandoned monastery near the tombs of the pharaohs, where he uncovers a web of intrigue, violence, and secrecy that reaches deep into Egypt's political heart...

The Ghost Runner, #3

Spoiler:

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 the truth can be as deadly and as changeable as the desert beneath his feet.