Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist. He is the author of the Makana Investigations series, the third of which, The Ghost Runner, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. The Divinities, the first in his Crane and Drake London crime series, was published in 2019. Born in London, he has lived in a number of places, including the UK, Denmark, Spain and, currently, the Netherlands.
@Parker_Bilal | jamalmahjoub.com
Also by Parker Bilal
Crane and Drake series
The Divinities
Makana Investigations series
The Golden Scales
Dogstar Rising
The Ghost Runner
The Burning Gates
City of Jackals
Dark Water
Writing as Jamal Mahjoub
Navigation of a Rainmaker
Wings of Dust
In the Hour of Signs
The Carrier
Travelling with Djinns
The Drift Latitudes
Nubian Indigo
(non-fiction)
A Line in the River: Khartoum, City of Memory
The paperback edition published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada by Black Thorn,
an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Severn House Publishers Ltd,
Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada
This digital edition first published in 2020 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Jamal Mahjoub, 2019
The right of Jamal Mahjoub to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 83885 080 7
eISBN 978 1 83885 081 4
A barrier will divide them,
And on the Heights there will be men who recognise each one by his look.
To those in Paradise they shall say:
‘Peace be upon you.’
But they shall not enter.
And when they turn their eyes towards the inmates of the Fire they will cry:
‘Lord do not cast us among those wicked people!’
– Al Quran, 7:46: The Heights
Apart from Heaven’s Eternity,
And yet so far from Hell!
– Edgar Allan Poe, ‘Al Aaraaf’ (‘The Heights’)
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