Fiction & Mysteries
Set in Africa & the Middle East

Algeria

Gloria Emerson, Loving Graham Greene.
A woman who admires Graham Greene travels to Algeria hoping to do good but ends up doing harm.

Yasmina Khadra, Double Blank. Mystery
Algerian Inspector Llob investigates the beheading of a famous political author and diplomat.

Benin

Robert Wilson, Instruments of Darkness.
A troubleshooter in West Africa angers a powerful woman and is hired to seek a missing man.

Botswana

Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Mystery
A woman in Botswana opens a detective agency and helps people solve a variety of mysteries.

Burundi

Sarah Stone, The True Sources of the Nile.
An American aid worker falls in love with a member of the Tutsi ruling class but racial violence and family tragedy threaten their relationship.

Congo

Michael Crichton, Congo.
Scientists in the Congo seeking a lost city find strange primates with killer instincts.

W.T. Tyler, The Consul’s Wife.
A U.S. foreign service officer is sent to the Congo, where he falls for the wife of the head consul.

Egypt

Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building.
The inhabitants of a Cairo apartment building embody the many facets and complexities of modern Egyptian society.

Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile. Mystery
Hercule Poirot investigates the death of a wealthy bride on her honeymoon cruise down the Nile.

Lawrence Durrell, Justine.
The Jewish wife of a wealthy Copt in Alexandria has an affair with an Irish schoolteacher.

Naguib Mahfouz, Palace Walk.
The story of the disintegrating family life of a merchant, his timid wife & their rebellious children.

Michael Pearce, Death of an Effendi. Mystery
In 1909, the head of Cairo’s secret police investigates the murder of a Russian financier.

Elizabeth Peters, The Golden One. Mystery
Archeologists Amelia & Emerson chase tomb robbers in Luxor while their son goes on an intelligence mission to Gaza.

Robert Sole, The Photographer’s Wife.
A Syrian woman in Egypt excels at her photographer husband’s profession, causing jealousy and scandal.

Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love.
A woman discovers the journal of an Englishwoman who fell in love with Egyptian nationalist.

Paul Sussman, The Lost Army of Cambyses.
A woman finds her archeologist-father murdered in Egypt and is pursued by someone seeking the key to an ancient treasure trove.

Iran

James Buchan, The Persian Bride.
An Englishman falls in love with an Iranian woman, but revolution and upheaval tear them apart.

Edmund Murray, The Peregrine Spy.
A CIA operative is sent to Iran to judge the durability of the Shah's regime and the influence Khomeini.

Gina Nahai, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith.
The magical tale of a Jewish woman from the ghettoes of Tehran.

Iraq

Alia Mamdouh, Naphtalene.
A 9-year-old girl comes of age in 1950s Baghdad.

David Poyer, Black Storm.
A U.S. military team infiltrates Baghdad during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Israel

Batya Gur, Saturday Morning Murder. Mystery
A Jerusalem detective investigates the murder of a prominent psychiatrist.

Ruchama King, Seven Blessings.
Two matchmakers in Jerusalem try to find mates for Orthodox men and women.

Amos Oz, Don’t Call It Night.
The story of a civil engineer and a schoolteacher in a small desert town in Israel.

Naomi Ragen, The Covenant.
When her son-in-law and grandchild are kidnapped, a woman calls on friends she made a pact with in Auschwitz.

A. B. Yehoshua, The Liberated Bride.
A professor in Haifa teams up with an Arab woman grad student for a research project.

Jordan

Masha Hamilton, Staircase of a Thousand Steps.
As religious and political tensions rise in Jordan, a girl travels to the desert village where her mother was born and uncovers long-buried family secrets.

Laila Halaby, West of the Jordan.
Four cousins in Jordan and America face choices about family, traditions and freedom as they grow to womanhood.

Kenya

Francesca Marciano, Rules of the Wild.
An Italian woman comes to Kenya seeking salvation following her father's death and finds a community of competitive white expatriates.

M. G. Vassanji, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall.
An Indian man raised in a Kenyan village becomes a government official in Nairobi but is accused of corruption.

Stefanie Zweig, Nowhere in Africa.
A Jewish family flees Germany in 1938 and settles on a farm in Kenya.

Liberia

Russell Banks, The Darling.
A privileged woman joins the Weather Underground and is forced to flee the U.S. to Africa, where she gets caught up in a bloody civil war.

Madagascar

John Robinson, Sapphire Sea. Paperback Fiction
A jewel dealer tries to get a magnificent sapphire out of Madagascar, pursued by others who covet it.

Morocco

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky.
Three Americans endure the dangers of the North African desert, losing their smug superiority in the face of a strange and difficult world.

Esther Freud, Hideous Kinky.
Two young English girls travel with their flighty mother who goes to Morocco seeking spirituality.

Jenny Siler, Flashback.
When the nuns caring for her are massacred, a woman with amnesia retraces her steps to Morocco to learn who she is and who’s out to get her.

Nigeria

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart.
A self-made man in a Nigerian village loses everything in the wake of colonialism.

Chimamanda Adichie, Purple Hibiscus.
A 15-year-old Nigerian girl and her brother escape their abusive father's home to live with their aunt, but a military coup threatens their newfound freedom.

Oman
James Rollins, Sandstorm.
A team of scientists seek the lost desert city of Ubar, where a cache of antimatter may be hidden.

Somalia

Nuruddin Farah, Links.
A former political prisoner returns to Somalia and helps a friend whose niece has been kidnapped.

Owen West, Sharkman Six.
U.S. Marines try to protect a Red Cross shipment in Somalia but are hampered by warlords and their own restrictive rules of engagement.

South Africa

J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace.
A disgraced Cape Town professor retreats to his daughter’s remote farm, where tragedy strikes.

Nadine Gordimer, None to Accompany Me.
A white lawyer and a black couple work to restore land to the dislocated.

Zakes Mda, The Madonna of Excelsior.
A woman gives birth to a mixed-race daughter and is charged under the Immorality Act.

Deon Meyer, Heart of the Hunter.
A former assassin embarks on an adventure across Africa to help a friend’s daughter.

Alan Paton, Cry the Beloved Country.
The son of a black Anglican priest is accused of murdering a white man.

Sudan

Philip Caputo, Acts of Faith.
Aid workers in the Sudan become involved in the politics and upheaval of the wartorn region.

Tunisia

Lyn Hamilton, The African Quest. Mystery
An antiques dealer on a business trip to Tunisia notices strange happenings among her tour group.

Turkey

Barbara Nadel, Belshazzar’s Daughter. Mystery
Turkish police investigating the murder of an elderly Jewish man uncover a secret history.

Orhan Pamuk, Snow.
An exiled poet returns to his Turkish hometown where ethnic and religious tensions rise during a blizzard.

Zimbabwe

J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele.
A Zimbabwean mother shares her heritage with her daughter at Harvard in a letter.