The Sleuth of Baghdad

by Charles B. Child

Inspector Chafik J. Chafik of the Baghdad police was the creation of Charles B. Child (1903-1993), the pseudonym of British author Claude Vernon Frost. As a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Airforce he worked with Military Intelligence in Iraq during the Second World War. Child wrote that Inspector Chafik was a composite of associates whom he met in the Middle East, whose "agile minds" could "wind through a complicated maze." Beginning in 1947, the Chafik stories were some of the most popular features in Collier's Magazine, and many were reprinted in the annual Best Detective Stories of the Year. The stories about Chafik, his wife Leila, and his adopted son Faisal whom he found on the streets of Baghdad are superlatively constructed exercises in detection, but they have a more subtle level. They are also explorations of a culture and a time and place. The stories begin when the British still influenced Iraqi politics, and continue through the period of the monarchy and the country's attempts to identify its place in the world. Many years ago, Frederic Dannay ("Ellery Queen") lamented that there was no book collection of the Inspector Chafik stories. We are delighted to publish this First Edition.

196 pages, Hardcover

First published July 28, 2002

Reviews

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

*The Inspector is discreet (1947)--
*Inspector Chafik closes the case (1947)--
Death had a voice (1948)--3
The Inspector had a wife (1948)--3
*The Inspector had a habit (1949)--
He had a little shadow (1950)--3
All the birds of the air (1950)--4
There is a man hiding, aka The army of little ears (1951)--4
Death in the fourth dimension (1952)--3
Death had a birthday, aka The lady of good deeds (1953)--3
Death was a wedding guest (1954)--3
Invisible killer, aka The thumbless man (1955)--3
Royal theft, aka The holy day crimes (1955)--
Death starts a rumor, aka The chicken feather of rumor (1956)--2
*The man who wasn't there (1969)--
***
The devil is a gentleman (1947)--2
Death had strange hands, aka Do not choose death (1948)--2
Satan had another name (1948)--3
The sheik it was who died (1948)--3
The long, thin man (1950)--3
A quality of mercy (1950)--
The cockroaches of Baghdad, aka The web caught the spider (1952)--
Death was the tempter, aka Murder weaves a pattern (1953)--3
Death danced in Baghdad, aka The face of the assassin (1955)--2

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: the character and circumstances of Inspector Chafik J. Chafik of the Baghdad police are products of WW2. Several short stories.