A murdered immigrant leads to a shocking discovery in this exciting fifth book in the Greek Island Mystery Series.

Leta Serafim quickly gets her newest novel underway, establishing the whodunit in the first sentence: “Chief Inspector Yiannis Patronas . . . [was] sitting at a cafe in Chora, the capital of the Greek island of Chios, when the call came in about the dead girl.” The girl is a Syrian named Raina, and her throat has been slit. She was found in Souda, a former refugee camp in Chios. Is her killing random? Or part of a larger plot?

The latter becomes more likely when a second Syrian is killed attempting to cross the channel between Turkey and Chios. Soon, Patronas and his two officers, Giorgos Tembelos and Melissa Costas, travel to Chios, with Costas posing as a refugee hoping to be smuggled into Chios’s other detention center, Vial. The plan falls apart when Costas is found out. The question now becomes: Can Patronas keep the others safe while pursuing Raina’s killer?

It won’t be easy. Patronas’s team is a ragtag bunch that doesn’t inspire confidence. His spouse is a classic sitcom wife: needling but devoted. His boss is media-savvy but feckless. Patronas himself is “nothing to look at, two-thirds the size of a normal man and shaped like a penguin.”

These descriptions sound like clichés, but Serafim gives her characters flaws, humor, ideologies–in other words, depth. Reflecting on Vial, Patronas calls it “one of the circles of hell.” Tembelos takes a less charitable view of the center’s refugees: “‘You give a peasant his freedom, he will take over your bed,’ my father used to say. Only now, it’s not your bed, it’s your whole fucking country.”

The best mystery novels are those that transcend plot to immerse readers in a fully realized world. Serafim does that in spades. The book has some typos, but they only slightly detract from a thrilling, thoughtful read.

Also available in ebook.