Thursday, March 14, 2013

Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger


First Line: Andreas Kaldis once read or heard somewhere that the chatter never stopped in Athens.

The body of a teenage boy from one of Greece's most prominent families has turned up in a dumpster in one of Athens' worst neighborhoods. Since the boy's father is known for his tenacity and ruthlessness, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis of the Greek Police's Special Crimes Division believes that the killer was sending a message. The question is: who sent the message... and why? Kaldis' investigation takes him deep into Athens nightlife and high society, and he begins to understand that the roots of this murder lie deep in the age-old frictions between old money and new.

Shame on me. It's been two years since I read the first book in the Andreas Kaldis series, Murder on Mykonos. I loved that first book so much that I immediately got my hands on the next two books in the series (and have since got my hands on the fourth). I don't do that very often, so you can see by that how much I enjoyed my first meeting with Kaldis. I've made a resolution that I would read more of the books languishing away on my shelves this year, and tops on my list was Assassins of Athens. Why, oh why did I wait so long???

There are times when reading a book that I sense that what I'm reading is exactly the way it is. The author has captured a place, a culture, a people, precisely the way they are, and that if I were ever to visit there, it would feel familiar to me-- just from reading that author's books. That's how I feel when I read Jeffrey Siger's novels.

Siger's main character Andreas Kaldis isn't always politically correct, but he always insists on getting the job done right. In Assassins of Athens he has help from socialite Lila Vardi, and their association adds spice to an already engrossing investigation that includes not only the rich and the lowlifes but students and revolutionaries as well. 

If you enjoy good characterization and truly involving mysteries, read Jeffrey Siger. If you love crime fiction with all that and a superb sense of place and immediacy, then let me repeat myself: Read. Jeffrey. Siger.

Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger
ISBN: 9781590587072
Poisoned Pen Press © 2010
Paperback, 286 pages

Police Procedural, #2 Inspector Kaldis mystery
Rating: A
Source: Purchased from Amazon.

8 comments:

  1. Cathy - Oh, no doubt. There's nothing like a sense of the real - the actual - to keep people hooked on a book or a series. And I think that's especially true (well it is for me) when the story is about a place I don't know well. I'm glad this one lived up to your expectations.

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    1. It can be a very special experience, too, when the series is set in an area one knows quite well.

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  2. Glad that you're reviewing this book, one of an excellent series set in Greece. The sense if place in these books if amazing.

    How I wanted to be on an island in Greece as I read Target: Tinos.

    It's the only book I've read in the series, but you are reminding me to go back and read the first three.

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    1. And you've reminded me that I really must get caught up with this series!

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  3. I really must read this author's series. I love getting to know a new place through novels.

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  4. Yes, Barbara, yes! How wonderful is global fiction, crime fiction particularly.

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    1. You got it, Kathy! The song I woke up with in my head this morning is "We are family." All of us on this planet ARE family, and the more we know about each other, the more we will realize this. It's the not knowing that generates so much fear.

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