Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley investigates a series of arson attacks on cars across the city, which leads her to a startling and life-threatening discovery involving criminal gangs and a very illicit love story…

‘Another brilliant adventure in the company of Chastity Riley, the coolest character in crime fiction. Darkly funny and written with a huge heart’ Doug Johnstone, Big Issue

‘Reading Buchholz is like walking on firecrackers … a truly unique voice in crime fiction’ Graeme Macrae Burnet

‘Caustic, incisive prose. A street-smart, gutsy heroine. A timely and staggeringly stylish thriller’ Will Carver

***WINNER of the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger 2022***
***WINNER of the German Crime Book of the Year Award***

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Night after night, cars are set alight across the German city of Hamburg, with no obvious pattern, no explanation and no suspect.

Until, one night, on Mexico Street, a ghetto of high-rise blocks in the north of the city, a Fiat is torched. Only this car isn’t empty. The body of Nouri Saroukhan – prodigal son of the Bremen clan – is soon discovered, and the case becomes a homicide.

Public prosecutor Chastity Riley is handed the investigation, which takes her deep into a criminal underground that snakes beneath the whole of Germany. And as details of Nouri’s background, including an illicit relationship with the mysterious Aliza, emerge, it becomes clear that these are not random attacks, and there are more on the cards…

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Praise for the Chastity Riley series…
'Combines nail-biting tension with off-beat humor ... Elmore Leonard fans will be enthralled' Publishers Weekly
'Buchholz doles out delicious black humor ... interwoven in a manner that ramps up the intrigue and tension' Foreword Reviews
‘A stylish, whip-smart thriller’ Russel McLean

‘Fierce enough to stab the heart’ Spectator

‘Sharp and unrelenting’ CultureFly

‘Simone Buchholz writes with real authority and a pungent, noir-ish sense of time and space’ Financial Times

‘Deeply moody, atmospheric and evocative’ Blue Book Balloon

‘An unconventional, refreshing new voice’ Crime Fiction Lover

‘Fans of Brookmyre could do worse than checking out Simone Buchholz, a star of the German crime lit scene who has been deftly translated into English by Rachel Ward’ Goethe Institute

‘By turns lyrical and pithy, this adventure set in the melting pot of contemporary Hamburg has a plot and a sensibility that both owe something to mind-altering substances. Lots of fun’ Sunday Times

‘Great sparkling energy, humour and stylistic verve and the story itself is gripping and pacey’ Rosie Goldsmith

‘A must-read, stylish and highly original take on the detective novel, written with great skill and popping with great characters’ Judith O’Reilly, author of Killing State