Murder in Mykonos

September 29, 2008
Soon after a woman's bound body turns up in a remote, abandoned church on the island of Mykonos in Siger's impressive debut, a score of other bodies surface—all, like the first, female travelers whose disappearances over two decades have been overlooked or ignored. Police chief Andreas Kaldis, recently transferred from Athens, teams with older homicide cop Tassos Stamatos to investigate the crimes, but even the wily veteran struggles with the plethora of suspects and local pressure to hide a peril that threatens the tourism the island lives on. Only when a new abduction occurs does their search gain official sanction, leading to a resolution that shakes Kaldis professionally and personally. Though the marshaling of suspects may strike some readers as formulaic, Siger's view of Mykonos (where he lives part-time) is nicely nuanced, as is the mystery's ambiguous resolution. Kaldis's feisty personality and complex backstory are appealing as well, solid foundations for a projected series.

November 1, 2008
Homicide detective Andreas Kaldis leaves his Athens job to take over as chief of police on Mykonos, an island paradise for the party crowd. When the body of a young woman, showing all of the signs of a ritual murder, is found in a church crypt, Kaldis is placed squarely in the middle of a high-profile investigation. More bones in the crypt reveal that a serial killer has been operating on the island for years. Now it is a race against time as another young woman vanishes. Siger, a Wall Street lawyer who lives part time on Mykonos, captures the rare beauty of the Greek islands in this series debut, the first serial killer thriller published by Poisoned Pen. His sense of place recalls Donna Leon's Venetian series, but his portrayal of rape and murder is all his own. For collections where foreign-set mysteries circulate.

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