3 best books by Petros Markaris

Veteran Petros markaris maintains the black genre linked to its most authentic origins, where that label of "black" extended to the obscurity of politics and society as a critic as torn as it is conscientious.

Because after each of his novels, in each of the cases of his star protagonist Kosta Jaritos or any other, reflects the committed nature of an author who, in addition to narrating, finds the pleasure of raising blisters, the intention to disguise carpets and the will to ventilate so that the current takes what is appropriate ...

It seems appropriate to highlight this aspect of Markaris because nowadays the black genre no longer sticks to those patterns in all cases, and I am not going to be the one who questions new horizons, in the mix and variety there is grace. Literature can be (in addition to many other things) engaging or cultivating entertainment. Neither better nor worse than the other.

In the same way that it is interesting to contemplate variations of an original idea, it is always gratifying to return to the origin of this great genre. And there, between Mankell o Vazquez MontalbanTo name two great classics, Petros Markaris currently maintains the blog of the black genre.

Top 3 Recommended Novels by Petros Markaris

offshore

This novel by Markaris dyes the world economy black. A courageous exercise in literature. The world passes to the rhythm of a giant crime novel. Hand in hand with globalization, the dark scenarios that not so long ago the authors of crime novels were in charge of transferring to fiction, have taken a qualitative leap.

The world is the market to be corrupted by the mafias. The control of absolute power seeks more sophisticated intervention systems and with greater penetration in decision-making bodies.

Petros Markaris was among the first to portray in fiction what is simmering in reality. From Greece to the world. The emblematic Hellenic country, a European paradigm of the crisis, seems to have become a bargaining chip for spurious interests.

Any attempt of rebellion against the assumption of slavery at the cost of the debt contracted tends to be stifled by the media, without forgetting other resources if it were necessary to resort to force. Reading "Offshore" is thinking about how far the current power can go to submit wills contrary to its interests.

To what extent is current legality allowed to be such legality and if the police can investigate everything. Never has evil had so many facilities to materialize. And the crime novel was never so close to literature as a social commitment to narrate what no one tells.

The famous commissioner Jaritos, with whom this author has already triumphed throughout the world, will never be able to suspect to what extent the lack of control is hidden under the guise of democracy, with its supposed spirit of popular will. The great virtues of today's mafias are the great vices and defects of the manipulation between over- and misinformation.

In short, Offshore is a murder thriller with all the flavor of a great crime novel. The question is whether fictions like this will be considered historical works at some future point.

offshore

Evening news

Life has an easy and low price according to which social strata. When an Albanian couple is found murdered, Commissioner Kostas Jaritos takes the case between the routine and the annoying.

The matter seems more like a settlement of accounts at the price of a balance or a revenge of heartbreak. Another Albanian soon takes charge of the killings. And if it could for Kostas Jaritos the matter would have been quickly settled in light of that statement.

Only Yanna Karayorgui, journalist and specialist in snooping beyond the account, discovers aspects that can lead to more heinous plans than mere murder as revenge between equals.

Indeed, Kostas Jaritos will glimpse something else at the bottom of the case. And that's when we enjoy the strange virtues of Kostas to unravel everything, or at least to try, in his desire to ensure that those who move the strings also fall in the middle of the quagmire ...

Evening news

Perfect suicide

Undoubtedly the best novel by Markaris to get to know the character of Kostas Jaritos very closely. The circumstances of his earlier "adventure" among the underworld of Athens nearly killed him.

As luck would have it, the bullet that hit him was not lethal. Only now, in this new installment, convalescence becomes worse at times, a living death away from his intense routine. And yet, it's going to be the tedious dumb box that brings him back to action. The extreme violence with which a live television personality is unexpectedly used catches everyone off guard.

That's when Kostas comes into play in that perfect combination of bloodhound, lifeguard and eccentric investigator. The truth awaits ... and this time all of Greece will need to know, all or only part ...

Perfect suicide

Other books by Petros Markaris ...

University for assassins

Sometimes the comparisons are shocking. That the good of Markaris considers the university environment as the germ of evil for a crime novel shows us notorious murky cases around a certain Spanish university ... With its sinister side even when the ties of teaching and politics are tightened for abominable interests .

It is true that the shameful case of the URJ did not reach the bloodstream (that we know of). And so, in the Spanish case, the title would be University for Thieves, signed by Valle Inclán instead of Markaris ...

But an association of ideas aside, this new novel by Markaris introduces us to that elitist world of university domes and the usual doors of entry and exit to politics, which, although they seem appropriate for people prepared in various subjects, end up being a bed of favors and servility on more than one occasion. To the point of extreme revenge and death.

Everything happens at a time of transition in which our already immortal commissioner Kostas Jaritos looks out at the baton in the future of the Athenian police. He is the chosen one of the outgoing director Guikas, and it is to be expected that after playing the appropriate keys the replacement will occur naturally.

But the naturalness of the events and the figure of Kostas always becomes a contradiction. Everything is entangled with the death of a politician, formerly a law professor at the capital university. What begins as a case to be revealed by the good old Kostas, with more determination than ever, to earn even more if the city's police leadership is possible, begins to move along unpredictable paths in which the old campus of the University goes darkening around characters as learned as they are dark.

The old professor has been poisoned with a cake. The confidence of the teacher with whom you took it home must be maximum. The circle closes in its closest environment or, perhaps, in that other more unknown environment that sometimes also surrounds the lives of the most worthy and recognized characters of the intellectual field par excellence, the university.

University for assassins

The hour of the hypocrites

Here we find the Markaris unavailable to discouragement in his endeavor to reveal to us the extent of human greed. From the spaces of power where the state of things is manufactured, with the resigned feeling that nothing is going to change, only characters like Commissioner Jaritos become heroes of the symbolic.

And for that, you just have to find a sufficiently intense motivation to face everything. And, as often happens on many occasions, the focus of evil ends up turning to where we least expect.

For Jaritos, the long-awaited birth of his grandson brings a significant change in his private life. However, the joy for this emotional event is overshadowed by the call announcing the murder of a famous businessman, a hotel magnate, well known for his charitable contributions.

A new terrorist group? A personal revenge? As soon as the investigation begins, a manifesto appears claiming the death of the businessman, without explaining, however, the reasons; That must be found out by the police, whom they describe as a henchman of power.

It is only stated that the hotelier deserved death. You will not be the only victim that this strange group takes. All of them blameless, apparently. Until Jaritos starts digging.

Márkaris focuses, once again, on the decision-making centers, where populist policies are in reality a simple facade that hides a more bloody reality, full of hypocrisy.

The hour of the hypocrites

Quarantine

he coronavirus pandemic has turned everything upside down: it has changed habits, exasperated moods and made life even more difficult for the disadvantaged. It has also affected Commissioner Jaritos, who returns to investigate two of the stories that make up this volume; when he is confined by a close positive contact, he will have to deal with murderers, with computers (to investigate without leaving his home)... and with his wife, Adrianí, who seems to be better at everything than him.

However, the situation has been merciless in particular with the most vulnerable: Márkaris dedicates unforgettable stories to them, such as the one starring the vagabonds Plato, Socrates and Pericles, or by two homeless people who only find solidarity among other disadvantaged people. A story of rivalry between a Greek and a Turkish restaurant in Germany once again opens the doors to hope, which contrasts with the terror of those who see their businesses founder after decades of effort. The stories close with an intimate and endearing recollection of the island of Jalki, where Petros Márkaris grew up.

5/5 - (20 votes)