Bled Dry: A Novel (Hoopoe Fiction)

I’m always on the lookout for crime fiction novels set in far flung locales so a Casablanca based detective offering appealed to me.Detective Hanash lays out his credentials fairly early in the piece. He takes kickbacks on an industrial scale and cares little for any suffering or hardship that he may cause in doing so. Hanash is then absent for the middle of the novel and comes back at around the two thirds mark to investigate the brutal murder of a young man and woman seemingly engaged in a tryst at the home of a third party.There is plenty of local colour and religious extremism is given a lot of space. I don’t doubt that some of the views espoused are representative of certain elements within Morocco but they are pretty grim and do not make for pleasant reading.So, back to Hanash. When he rejoins the novel, he fails to make any headway on solving the double murder. I’ll stop there but if the denouement of this novel is emblematic of the Moroccan police force then I sincerely hope that I never have cause to call upon their services.A downbeat novel and one that promised intrigue but delivered only misery and iniquitous sentiments.