Happy Birthday, Turk! [Hardcover]

Jakob Arjouni (Author), Anselm Hollo (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1993

When a Turkish laborer is stabbed to death in Frankfurt's red light district, the local polcie see no need to work overtime. But when the laborer's wife comes to him for help, wise-cracking detective Kemal Kayankaya, a Turkish immigrant himself, smells a rat. The dead man wasn't the kind of guy who spent time with prostitutes. What gives? The deeper he digs, the more Kayankaya finds that the vitim was a good guy, a poor immigrant just trying to look out for his family. So who wanted him dead, and why? On the way to find out, Kayankaya has run-ins with prostitutes and drug addicts, gets beaten up by anonymous thugs, survives a gas attack, and suffers several close encounters with a Fiat.

And then there's the police cover-up he stumbles upon ...


From the Trade Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like many a translated European crime novel, this American edition comes with overblown references to Chandler and Hammett and is replete with idiosyncratic prose stylings that, whether deliberate or artifacts of the translation from the German, serve to perplex rather than illuminate. Ahmed Hamul was a Turkish laborer stabbed to death in Frankfurt and suspected by his family of being a heroin dealer. Kemal Kayankaya is the shamus, born in Turkey but raised in Germany, hired by the victim's wife to find the truth about the killing. Arjouni leads his readers through the dark center of early-'80s Frankfurt with its strippers, hookers and ersatz Americana in the shape of fried chicken and cheeseburgers. The language, while briskly utilized, is often stretched (a refrigerator resembles a pack of cigarettes beside the large body of a barmaid) and every genre cliche about the hard-drinking, smart-mouthed gumshoe is shamelessly overemployed. Frankfurt might as well be Pittsburgh, and Kayankaya a TV creation.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This entertaining, fast-paced mystery features private investigator Kemal Kayankaya, a German citizen of Turkish origin. Ahmed Hamul is murdered in Frankfurt's red light district. His wife wants to know why, so she hires Kayankaya. During his investigation, we glimpse the discrimination faced by foreigners in today's Germany. Though born in Turkey, Kayankaya was adopted by a German couple, is largely unfamiliar with Turkish life and customs, and speaks only German. Nevertheless, by virtue of his name and appearance, he comes into his share of abuse. He doesn't seem to benefit from his experience, however, forever sowing what he reaps. He thinks of two Oriental men, for example, as "slit-eyed Minoltas" and refers to an overweight woman as "Madam Hulk." Something is no doubt lost in the translation, but the spirit is presumably the same. This enjoyable book exposes Americans to a slice of German culture they might not otherwise see. For public libraries that buy fiction in translation.
- Peggie Partello, Keene State Coll., N.H.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 154 pages
• Publisher: Fromm Intl; 1st English ed edition (October 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880641487
• ISBN-13: 978-0880641487
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,680,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, if a bit strange, May 8, 2004

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Happy Birthday, Turk! (Hardcover)

There are any number of private eye novelists around, and I'm one of those people who are always looking for something different. This book, a first novel about a man of Turkish descent who works in Frankfurt, Germany, as a private eye, is definitely different. It comes with the usual trappings of a detective novel, but it's a good story nontheless.

Kemal Kayankaya is Turkish by birth but was raised by Germans, and has little left of his heritage. He works in Frankfurt as a private eye, and is very stereotypical: he drinks too much, fools around with prostitutes, cracks wise when he would be wise to be serious, and is doggedly determined to solve his case. In the current installment, a Turkish man has been murdered and his wife thinks the police have no interest in solving the crime because of his race. Kayankaya dives into the case face first, getting into fistfights, having a car chase him, and getting teargassed, in between pistol-whipping various suspects.

This is a good book: I would recommend it. It *does* have the dated feel that a lot of European stuff has in contrast to American movies and television. You always think they're looking to Chandler rather than Robert B. Parker for their inspiration. Everything's *very* hardboiled. That being said, this is a fun book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard-Boiled in Frankfurt, April 14, 2000

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Happy Birthday, Turk! (Hardcover)

If you're looking for a solid, hard-boiled with a twist, try this first book in a series about a Turkish PI living in Frankfurt. Kemal Kayankaya is a detective well-rooted in the genre's requirements, he's always drinking, often a wise-ass, gets his ass kicked a few times, and kicks a little ass, and underneath all the weariness and disgust, has a streak of compassion. Economical in length, the story about murdered immigrants, drugs, crooked cops, and the red-light district translates well from the original German.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good "hartgesottene" detective story, May 30, 2001

By 

elizabeth c (the eastern seaboard, more or less) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Happy Birthday Turk (Paperback)

As usual, I read this book in the original German, for one of my college courses, so I can't speak for the translation. The style in German is pretty simple, so most of the book should translate well. However, there is a lot of dialogue in some German dialects, and I don't know how that translates into English.

The story is pretty simple. Kemal Kayankaya is ethnically Turkish, but he was raised by a white German couple, so he doesn't feel like he belongs in the Turkish minority. He still looks Turkish, though, so he has problems fitting into German society. A Turkish woman, Ilter Hamul, comes to Kayankaya for help because he's Turkish.

Ilter's husband, Ahmed Hamul, was murdered, and the police aren't investigating. Kayankaya starts working on the case on his birthday (that's where the title comes from) and solves it within three days. The case becomes much more complicated than a simple murder, and involves drugs and corruption, and a very brief look at some of the troubles Turks face as a minority in Germany. That's kind of a bonus, because this is basically a simple, hardboiled detective novel.

Kayankaya is a good example of a hardboiled detective, so if you like hardboiled detectives, you'll like this book very much. Even if you don't, you'll probably enjoy it anyway, because it's well written. I usually don't like mysteries (besides Sherlock Holmes) but I enjoyed "Happy Birthday, Turk!"