Customer Reviews

The Sleuth of Baghdad

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My first instinct on picking up this book was to wonder why a publisher would go to so much trouble to collect and resurrect these stories only to package them so unattractively. The utterly amateurish cover and inside typography detracts a great deal from the enjoyment of the book, which collects 15 of the roughly 34 Inspector Chafik stories published in Colliers, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and John Bull between 1947 and 1969. Set in post-WWII Iraq, the stories feature a cunning Baghdad police inspector. Drawing on his wartime experience in Iraq, Child created a kind of stereotypical genius inspector who's smarter than everyone else and has those abstract leaps of intuition that are the mark of the brilliant fictional detective. Fortunately, he's not infallible, and in several stories must be rescued by his faithful assistant or his adopted son. In each, there is an initial murder which Chafik tackles, although sometimes he metes out his own form of justice rather than proceeding strictly according to law. The stories need to be read slowly over time, otherwise they tend to blur into each other as the author's style and construction is unvaried throughout. As a portrait of Baghdad, it's occasionally insightful. For example, in the stories Chafik deals with Armenians, Greeks, Sunnis, Shi'ites, city folks, villagers, rich, and poor. In that sense it does a good job of showing the diversity that exists in may Arab cities, but otherwise it's a fairly static and romanticized picture of Baghdad just before rapid modernization hits. Altogether, a moderately diverting collection of old-fashioned stories in an unusual setting.

Crippen landru continue their LOST CLASSICS series with a great adition, the Child stories. They are good puzzles and will provide a great read in a caracther you probably wont know but will want another collection after reading this one. BUY IT!