City of Tiny Lights

Dark comedy, I suppose, but also a classic private eye thriller with a new twist. And a different take on the so-called "war on terror" (can anyone really use that phrase without quotation marks with a straight face?) with a disturbing twist at the end.

Tommy Akhtar is the son of a Ugandan Asian who was expelled by Idi Amin. An unusual name for an Asian, many people comment, but Tommy's dad was a great fan of Tommy Cooper. Tommy is a former mujahidiin who has seen front line action against the Soviets in Afghanistan, after which he slept rough on the streets of London, moved in with his father for a while, and eventually became the archetypal hard-drinking, cynical, chain-smoking, disillusioned private eye. The book is rich with show more cricketing references - Tommy's old man believes life, the universe and everything can be explained in terms of cricket (with a few quotes from Churchill thrown in for good measure). There are some good portraits of London street life. Tommy's brother owns a minicab firm, which provides some nice cameos.

What starts as a simple private detective case, finding a missing hooker, takes a disturbing and violent turn and goes on to examine "terrorism" and "counter terrorism", patriotism, culture and much more (including, of course, cricket). An excellent read. show less

A noir story about a Muslim PI in London. Interesting fresh mix. I enjoyed it quite a lot, though between the heavy British slang and the cricket metaphors there was a lot I couldn't follow.

I don't think that I liked this book. Maybe I am just not fond of the Noir genre, but Tiny Lights never really came together for me. I never really got into it,

The Guardian review sums it up well http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/16/featuresreviews.guardianreview23