Ashes by Sergios Gakas

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Called "A gripping, gritty tale of love and loss and revenge (Eurocrime) and hailed as "a wonderful slice of Greek Noir," (Crimepieces) Ashes is classic noir set in a corrupt and crumbling society where addiction and regret are the only human qualities left. When Sonia Verika, a former actress who takes solace in alcohol and isolation, is pulled from a blazing house fire, her body is burned almost beyond recognition. The house she shared with a retired director and a small family of African show more refugees is entirely destroyed, and she is the only survivor. For her ex-lovers, Police Inspector Chronis Halkidis and Simeon Piertzovanis, a failed lawyer and the landlord of the gutted property, her fate is a heavy reckoning. Reflection gives way to guilt, and then to a fanatical desire to uncover the truth behind the blaze and hold those responsible to account--by any means necessary. But with corruption rife throughout the force, Chronis soon finds his investigation shackled from within. Fuelled by their need for revenge, and by their twin addictions to alcohol and cocaine, Simeon and Chronis must resort increasingly to violence if they are to unmask a conspiracy that unites church and state against the interests of justice. show less

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kerns222 365 reviews

Gakas does mystery differently, but only in the telling: two alternating first-person voices and interspersed, short, dialog flashbacks carry you through the book. Otherwise Ashes is pure noir: drunk, dead, destroyed, and bankrupt, Greece, a cop a lawyer, and their ex-actress lover have given up. Greece wallows. The lawyer drinks. The lover dies as the book starts. The cop fights as he snorts his way thru the investigation. Half-crazed to start, he makes it to the final pages, looking for vengeance, not justice. (Justice is no longer possible in Gakas' Greece.)

May 25, 2018

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bcquinnsmom 1,236 reviews