Morituri (Toby Crime) [Paperback]

Yasmina Khadra (Author), David Herman (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Toby Crime | Publication Date: November 2003

This remarkable roman policier introduces us to the formidable and yet very human detective-writer, Superintendent Llob and his devoted lieutenant Lino. It follows Llob in his search for the missing daughter of Ghoul Malek, one of the top power brokers in Algiers. In his search, Llob must traverse the fear-filled streets of Algiers, from the dens of the drug pushers to those of the cruel and fanatical Islamic fundamentalists. The poverty and constant terror and suspicion endemic to Algiers, torn apart by civil war, is set against contrasting glimpses of the corrupt and luxurious high society. The memory of the serene and beautiful Algiers that was makes the current situation all the more heartbreaking. More than just an outstanding mystery novel, with Morituri Khadra paints an unforgettable picture of the tragedy of modern Algeria, in language of breathtaking power and poetry.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Vintage Khadra - fascinating, incisive analysis delivered in a melancholy tone, to represent social conflict -- Hamburger Abendblatt

Yasmina Khadra's trilogy transcends crime, it examines 'crime' in the context of a deprived people, shorn of any civil rights. -- Le Monde

About the Author

YASMINA KHADRA is the pseudonym of the Algerian author Mohammed Moulessehoul, who was born in 1956. A high ranking officer in the Algerian army, he went into exile in France in 2000, where he now lives in seclusion. In his several writings on the civil war in Algeria, Khadra exposes the current regime and the fundamentalist opposition as the joint guilty parties in the Algerian Tragedy. Before his admission of identity in 2001, a leading critic in France wrote: "A he or a she? It doesn't matter. What matters is that Yasmina Khadra is today one of Algeria's most important writers."

Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: Toby Press; 1st English Language Ed edition (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592640354
• ISBN-13: 978-1592640355
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #542,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Arab Crime Fiction a la Pulp, April 20, 2004

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Morituri (Toby Crime) (Paperback)

I've long been looking for an Arab crime novel, and so it was with glee that I found this one (especially as I lived in Algiers for five years, where the book is set). Khadra (a psuedonym for a former Algerian army officer), has written three Superintendent Llob books, but I'm not sure where this one fits into the trilogy. Set in the mid to late-1990s, at the height of Algeria's Civil War (in which several hundred thousand people have died), when the police were targets for Islamic insurgents, the story has a viceral edge, as the hero takes his life in his hand every day when he leaves his apartment.

Both the story and the style owe more than a little to Raymond Chandler, as the disenchanted hero is tasked with tracking down the missing daughter of a powerful mover and shaker. The muscular prose tracks Llob and his sidekick as they trawl through the dregs of the city and the corrupt upper echeleons in their attempt to stay alive and find the missing girl. The story is full of twists and turns, as they deal with pimps, pushers, and perverts in order to find the truth. All against a backdrop where certain neighborhoods are off-limits to police, every rich person is slimy, and any package could be a bomb. It's a quick read, and over the top in kind of a pulpy way, but well worth it if you're interested in having your stereotypes of the Arab world shattered. This is apparently being made into a filmóhere's hoping the other Llob books appear in English soon.

Note: The excerpt posted on Amazon is not the final translation, and is much more fractured than what is in the book.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Well Done, October 6, 2004

By 

Richard R. Carlton (Ada, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Morituri (Toby Crime) (Paperback)

Khandra's books are simple with multiple levels of perception. More importantly, they are masterfully wordsmithed (the over-used term is well earned in this case). These are the kind of books that haunt you for years as they become part of your psyche.....and you see parallels to the writing all around you.......the writing truly provides you with a new perception of your own life.

Here are all the books to date, with a bit of info on each:

Swallows of Kabul (2004)
A bit hit in France, this story of 2 couples and their attempts to cope with the rule of the Taliban is mesmerizing.

Wolf Dreams (2003) 3rd of an Algerian trilogy
A story of a Moslem Jihadi, from sweet boy to fanatic fundamentalist has been recommended for insight into the driving force of suicidist youngsters.

Morituri (2003) 2nd of an Algerian trilogy
An Algerian kidnaping story that provides a compelling look at the definition of crime in a permanently impoverished society.

In The Name Of God (2000) 1st of an Algerian trilogy
A look at the phenomena of Moslem fundamentalism in Algeria, this book has strong parallels to Camu's "The Plague." In some ways it is a more modern variation on a theme of Camu's work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When There Are No Good Guys..., February 14, 2011

By 

Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Morituri (Toby Crime) (Paperback)

Yasmina Khadra (real name: Mohammed Moulessehoul) is a former high ranking Algerian army officer who moved to France in 2000 after having witnessed some of the bloodiest and most brutal days in Algerian history (and that is saying a lot). Moulessehoul went into exile because he dared write about the fact that there were few "good guys" in the Algeria's religion-based civil war, other than perhaps the countless civilians who were slaughtered in the process. The Algerian army was often as guilty of atrocity as the terrorists whom the military struggled to control.

That Khadra/Moulessehoul would leave Algeria with a jaded outlook on life is no surprise. That he would adapt his experiences into a classically noirish detective series would be more difficult to imagine - but that is exactly what he did with Morituri and the other Superintendent Llob books.

Superintendent Llob and Lieutenant Lino have been around long enough to understand the politics of police work in a city as politically corrupt as Algiers. They recognize the relationship between corrupt politicians, businessmen, and high ranking police officials. But those simple days are over. Now, policemen like Llob and Lino are being targeted for political assassination by groups trying to collapse Algeria's governmental system. In order to speed up the cultural breakdown, policemen and their families are being assassinated alongside writers, singers, journalists, entertainers, and others deemed to be a threat to the Muslim revolution. Men like Llob and Lino take each day one at a time, thankful each time they make it to the office without incident.

In the midst of the turmoil, Superintendent Llob is assigned to search for the missing daughter of one of the more corrupt powerbrokers in Algiers. The search will force Llob and Lieutenant Lino into the underworld of Algiers that few Westerners would dream exists. Llob, ever the tough guy, uses his contacts to get himself inside some of the most decadent settings one can imagine, places where anything and everything can be had for the right price, including young women, little girls, and little boys. Llob pursues the search for the missing rich girl, crashing and bullying his way from scene to scene, despite what he learns about her and her father.

The strength of Morituri is in how the novel so deftly captures the atmosphere of 1990s Algiers, a city in which paranoia and fear ruled the day. When I left Algiers in late 1993 (early in the evolution of the war), it was already a city of curfews, unreliable roadblocks, massacres of entire villages, beheadings, kidnappings, bombs, and assassinations. Drivers had to decide on a hunch whether a roadblock was being manned by real military personnel or by terrorists dressed to look the part. There was a shoot-on-sight rule for anyone caught on the streets after ten p.m. Villages, down to the last man, woman and child, were slaughtered within the sight and hearing of army posts but military personnel did not always bother to notice. Westerners were targets of choice for kidnappers and assassins. Army and police personnel seldom bothered to take prisoners in shootouts with terrorists they confronted in the middle of a long Algerian night.

The difference was I could walk away from Algiers, never to return. Superintendent Llob and Lieutenant Lino had to stay and to do their best to protect the streets of the city, an impossible task. Yasmina Khadra has written Morituri in a style that can be a bit difficult to read at times - characters come and go at a rapid pace and the plot veers from scene to scene like a runaway train - but he has done a magnificent job in recreating the atmosphere of a major world city that was eating itself alive in the nineties.