Makana is a former homicide detective in Khartoum now living as a refugee at the bottom of society in Cairo. One day one of Egypt's richest men hires him to find a missing person and so Makana is plunged into a world of gangsters, shady businessmen, wannabe film stars and all manner of social, political and personal corruption. It is not written in a hardboiled style at all (there is quite a bit of humour) but the story has definite modern noir overtones, kind of "'Chinatown' in Cairo." Makana himself has demons and there are flashbacks to the situation in Sudan that lead to personal tragedy and then exile.

I'm not an expert on Egypt by any means but I worked there for a few months and have taken an interest in reading about it, and I thought aspects of the place were beautifully evoked in the writing and characters. It's not just "generic exotic location" but specific and knowing. The Golden Scales is set in 1998 and I gather is to be a series taking us up to the present day so I look forward to the return of Makana in another book.